Re: A proposal to improve dselect
>So, in hindsight, it was necessary to get my hands dirty, and see how
>bad upgrading, and maintenance could be before I found Debian.
I agree. I started off much the same way (only I started with SunOS, found
how yucky upgrading was, found slackware nicer and then found debian a few
months ago, we are still in the process of swapping over all of our servers
to debian). My point however is that it would be nice if beginners could
"get their hands dirty" *with* debian. It shouldn't be to hard to make a
simple front end for dpkg (or a simplified dselect) which the beginner
*could* use.
>Now really, how much can a complete novice really do with a new Linux
>machine. It takes an investment of time, energy, and interest to
>learn even the simplest of tasks, but once you know them ;-)
Agreed. I've been a sysadmin for 3 years now. It takes a lot of time to
get your head around UN*X, especially if you came from a Windows/Mac
background and don't have much/any programming experience.
The fact that it takes effort is no reason to make it harder. In my mind
debian has two things going for it. First, and the reason I changed, is
that it makes maintaining multiple systems (new versions, bug fixes etc)
*much* easier; second that it provides a good starting point for learning
*without* needing to know how to compile programs from scratch.
>I think we can all agree that a complete beginner is going to have
>trouble installing any form of Linux/BSD/and yeah maybe even Win95
>if they don't do a little
>research first. When I started I had no idea what a MTA is much less
>which one I'd like to use. ;-) but gawd to have such a choice ;-)
Exactly. Lets make it as easy as possible for them to get something they
can use working (which it nearly is already) rather then say that since
it's going to be hard there's no point trying to make it easy.
>I think it is more important to help complete novices learn a little
>about what is possible with their new O/S and let them investigate
>what _they_ want to. Yeah it may take some time to get a fully
>functional system, but that is how everyone else here did it, right?
I think the fact that Debian is free is a non-issue. It has nothing to do
with the problem. Helping them learn is important, and educating them on
what the choices mean is important. But a very good tool to help that
education would be a working linux system!
>Agreed, but I really think that Linux isn't your Moms operating
>system, and hope it never really is.
I don't think it has much to offer the average mom and pop, *but* if they
want to use it more power to them. Lets help them.
>I'm not picking on you Adam, I just don't understand the barrage of
>attacks on dselect, when this novice, really finds it a joy compared
>to the alternative. I know, everyone just wants it to be the best it
>can be, buts lets face it, dselect accomplishes a huge amount of work, in
>a short time with a huge number of options, and only pukes when it is
>sick. Couldn't ask any more, considering what we paid for it anyway ;-)
I'm not picking on dselect, it's the best tool that I've ever used to
maintain any UN*X system. I am commenting on ways to make *starting* with
Debian easier. One stubling block for new users is dselect. It is not
very intuitive and takes a while to get your head around.
>Thanks to the Maintainer, and kudos.
Agreed :)
Adam.
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