Re: A quick start guide for sarge
On Friday 10 June 2005 18:07, Paul Frederiks wrote:
| Hello,
|
| I've started working on a "quick start guide" for new desktop users of the
| sarge release.I am already
| questioning a lot of the decisions I've made thusfar, and seek advice /
| help.
| http://www.nic-nac-project.de/~psilo/desktop_sarge/quick_start_guide.html
Hi Paul,
i read you webpage, and made notes :
"quik start guide" : how quick is it ? start 8:55
Introduction:
sarge is first that can be recommended :
i could recommend every debian release for linux newbies,
because all other distros don't give the whole thing for free,
so debian is the only community thing.
What is the target audience ? newbies that are assumed to never give back ?
woody was already good for clueless users.
"unless you have unsupported hardware"
too vague ; if you mean radeons, say radeons,
and if you can explain handling that case, then that is easy too.
I doubt clueless users would know what 'dll hell'' is.
'where possible i will link to existing documentation' :
seems to have a different subject than rest of paragraph.
You recommend 'doing a full backup' ; is this explained ?
recommend 'multiple machines' : unrealistic for most users.
'installing windows after debian requires black magic' :
i havent tried that,
i thought once partitions were set up, it would be easy
(windows installing in /dev/hda1 (C:))
Installation :
print release notes is good advice.
'personally i have' starts a new subject in same paragraph.
i don't know how you do that in 10 minutes,
it always takes me a lot longer,
especially configuration of kernel.
'selecting dutch results in sane defaults' :
is this recommendable for french too ?
us keyboard : i think netherlands use us keyboards,
but other countrys do not ;
it is easy to choose by qwerty/azerty etc.
network by dhcp :
i think majority of clueless are on dialup ;
many of them have winmodems (unusable internal modem cards)
for them, a full cd (or dvd) install is best.
webserver : encouraging newbies to run an unconfigured webserver ?
or doesn't apache start as soon as it is installed ?
download time is for a fast connection ;
from cd it is much faster.
configure x :
link to what to read is missing
MTA :
for most users with permanent connection ... :
newbies will use kmail and balsa,
and exim is not used by them,
all they need to do is configure kmail/balsa
(smtp server, username, password)
At login :
'the default user you have created ...' :
you mean 'root' ?
'it is not fast but instant' :
takes two seconds on my 200 MHz box.
at end of article, i have not read a word about ati/nvidia
so every user should first take trouble of finding and getting knoppix ?
finish 9:40 -> 45 minutes.
nice to read, and usefull.
-----
'every command/executable has a manpage' :
not quite true : cron scripts (not intended to be invoked by user) don't.
maybe 'program' would be clearer.
invoke it with :
you haven't told about terminals yet.
bash-doc
maybe better: <packagename>-doc, for example 'bash-doc'.
webserver :
you can read documentation without installing a webserver,
there is nothing difficult about it.
why tell them to install a server ?
they are newbies.
who can connect to that server ?
can someone on same ethernet reconfigure your printer ?
partitioning:
what is a partition :
see SiIntroUseTerm on my homepage.
sensible dual-boot strategies :
this is very simple :
0) debian and windows : not good, but sometimes necessary
1) stable and unstable : good and better. : -)
bash :
you mean commandline.
.bashrc :
what purpose does this webpage have ?
a nicer .bashrc does not help a newbie start using debian quicker.
a large part is based on debian thanks to knoppix :
how is a newbie going to understand what that means ?
hardware compatibility :
i seem to remember there being a HOWTO on this
be prepared for a world of pain :
nah, it just doesnt work. buy an other printer.
trying to fix it is impossible for a non-expert.
but if it works somewhat, still try it ofcourse.
printing systems :
what is that ?
spooler :
what is that ?
by default debian uses oss :
kernel 2.6 uses alsa, and alsa has compatibility modules with which it
emulates all features of oss. oss modules are deprecated.
so alsa is system to use, and oss applications all continue to work.
How does debian use oss ??
starting x :
if x starts and shows garbled, CtrlAltF1 does not present a login,
either do CtrlC or go to another VT.
old monitors don't blow up either.
reboot can be used in case of emergency,
or CtrlAltKeypadplus.
mode string of modeline must also appear in modelist of display section.
install nvidia :
background is so dark that i can not read text below this headline.
---
many of topics in right column are things to do after installation,
if you move these to a separate page, the misc notes become a lot smaller.
this quick start is maybe the quickstart you would have liked to have had.
it is a bit specific to your hardware and country
(but with help from the list it can be made a bit more general),
and i expect you had a lot of trouble getting X to work,
because your video card doesn't have a free driver
(this clutters the start of the article with negative associations).
it tells me about how a new user uses debian
(i use startx and olvwm as windowmanager, so i never get to see that).
it also tells newbies about incomprehensible things they encounter
(on my first install i thought 'smarthost' probably referred to my
computer).
i hope these are of some use to you.
have fun !
Siward
(home.wanadoo.nl/siward)
Reply to: