On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 12:12:40AM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote: > Improving the installer helps administrators, but to benefit *users*, > we should also be working on improving the social infrastructure so > they don't *have* to know the difference between 75dpi and 100dpi > fonts. Very true. But whatever changes to Debian's installation make that possible must make sure that those who still care, *can* care :) A lot of Debian users are refugees from other distrbutions who felt that these distributions held their hand too much. You musn't destroy that key reason. That brings us back to the previous question[1]: who should Debian really target? If you watch #debian, you typically see the end users who can't or don't want to learn how to harness the system to work for them. These are oftentimes the same kind of refugees, who discovered with a shock that they got a lot less hand holding than they bargained for with Debian. When they ask for help, they often are told to RTFM to fix the problem (not that it isn't a solution) and basically read up all the manpages that a systems administrator would read, in order to fix his or her problem. But all they want to do is enjoy a truly free OS and probably do whatever it is they used to do with whatever distribution they used previously, or perhaps whatever non-free OS they used previously :). No hassles. Is it too much to ask? If they're told rudely to scurry back to that other OS, that's not fixing the problem. Measly stuff like detecting X, setting up a generic non-abusable mail system without the user having to know what 'relay domains' are, shouldn't have to be an issue during setup. My friend in Massachusetts is currently having lots of 'fun' watching X tank and die because setting it up with exactly the right settings is a nightmare for him. (I've advised discover to him, but I believe he has gone to sleep) Anyway, I believe a user-friendly initial setup is very effective. The beautiful thing is that Debian's underlying framework makes it very easy for people who grow tired of this initial setup to start experimenting with more 'daring' stuff (relative to how easy it's been before for thm.) Of course, I recognize that a lot of this is due to be fixed in the new debian-installer. But I hope this gives the d-i team a slightly clearer view of what end users are experiencing with Debian as of woody. I'm sorry if this doesn't make COMPLETE sense. It's a little past my bedtime, but I felt that I had to give my 2 cents. Please cc: replies to me -- I'm interested in what others feel about this touchy subject (or so it seems) Regards, Josh -- New PGP public key: 0x27AFC3EE
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