Ian Jackson schreef op 21-10-2016 17:26:
Wouter Verhelst writes ("Re: Proposed documentation, please comment! [was Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM...]"):On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 01:41:11PM +0200, Bart Schouten wrote: > I don't think Debian is for lay users Why?Personally, I think Debian is trying to be for everyone. That includes lay users and experts; people who want to set up one machine and people who want to deploy millions; people who want to the default install with no fuss and people who want to rebuild everything; people who like emacs and people who like vi; etc. Of course we pay a price for that: sometimes there are rough edges. Some other distros smooth the path for their target audience, at the cost of making things very difficult for those who outside the target audience. We usually choose not to do that. That makes us a good upstream for deriving from; lets all of us collaborate on our different goals; gives us flexibility if we should change our mind; and so on. But there is a price of course. A lay user may find Debian is best used if they have someone nearby who can help them sort out any problems. We can hope that the are minor and we try to remove, where possible, barriers to fixing them.
The best thing about Debian is that it seeks not to be so chaotic. Not having exaggerative or megalomanious goals is part of that. Debian is like Zen, and I think it is no coincidence that the logo resembles a Zen painting.
An important thing in any computer system is calm.Not unrest but stability. I believe that also involves a form of minimalism.
Yet I don't know how you define "lay" person. Anybody on this mailing list will have technical computer skills that dwarfs that of the ordinary person. Most people have never heard of the word Linux.
Some have heard of Ubuntu. Few, fewer still, have ever heard the word Debian.
What is a lay user then? On a relative scale, maybe I am a lay person to some. To someone else I'm an expert.
When I speak to people who are interested in computers they are amazed by what I know. I do not consider it special.
I am actually surprised that they are awed by me. For me it is normal. I suspect for everyone here, it is normal. But what is normal for us, is certainly not normal for the average person on the street.
I think it is hard to convince anyone how much knowledge you have without being able to point to tangible things you can show or positions of authority or recognition you may hold.
You may have the knowledge of a professor but if you have nothing to show for it, people will not be able to see it.
They only see a husk walking the street ;-).That's why I say Debian is not for lay users because any "lay user" is already an expert to someone else. Debian is not usable for someone who is not technically inclined. I also do not look to Debian to provide that, I must say.
So you can pour effort into making Debian newbie-friendly but there is a limit to what you can achieve with that and how sensible that is to pursue it. Anybody that wants a desktop system with no or little fuss should, in my eye, look to Ubuntu et al. I don't think you have to cater to people that do not know how to use the command line, or that would have a hard time executing some partitioning or LVM commands. I mean that you may expect a certain amount of expertise. Providing knowledge is good, but taking people by the hand is not necessary. I think it is more important to be complete in your documentation and concise and minimalist in a certain way without defaulting on completeness here, than to help people with guided instructions.
If the steps are evident, someone can choose how to perform or implement them. I think that agrees with what you said here, Ian. There is a sense of peace that comes with knowing what is required, like a diagram detailing architecture (there is often very little architectural drawings of Linux, which is a great shame to me, as it saves enormous amounts of time in understanding something). Then, people can make their own choice.
It is "better" to show someone how it works and what is needed, rather than tell them what to do. Then, people can choose their own actions. You give them a "state" and you make them aware of the "state" of the system. Once they know the state, they know themselves how to get to the next "state". It is better to let people know what to do by their own accord because they understand the system rather then telling them how to proceed in a field they will never understand. That's why I said Debian is not for lay users because it works better if someone can comprehend what is needed prior to proceeding. All too careful guided tutorials defeat this purpose because it means you are asking people to proceed in the dark but you are holding their hands while doing so. That doesn't work really. People need to understand what they do and why, not be taken along for a ride. That's why I feel you shouldn't try to lower the bar of entry by providing step-by-step tutorials that no longer necessitate any base knowledge of the system. What I mean is that it is okay if a certain level of expertise -- or ability to acquire and understand it -- is required.
I just mean is that you shouldn't try to expand the scope of your userbase beyond what is reasonable possible because it is not possible anyway and you should recognise that you *are* a technical system of a certain amount of detail and expertise that is required to use it. And that it is also /difficult/ to a certain extent. And that's okay too.
TL;DR --> last paragraph ^.