Re: Suggestion for Newbie Guide Lines (ITP)
I think I posted a response to this already, but if not here it is.
>From a newbie point of view, the actual root of the problem
faced by newbies in trying to come to grips with any unix
based operating system is NOT that there is insufficient
documentation ... but rather that there is TOO MUCH,
and that the vast majority of that has been written by experts
FOR experts !!!!!!!!!!!
Will someone PLEASE get the message that the present
format of MAN, HOWTO, and other stuff is NOT intelligible
to the majority of newbies, and that is why there are so many
postings on stuff regarded as trivial by experts !!!!!!!!!!!
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Stenner <mstenner@phy.duke.edu>
To: Patrick Kirk <patrick@kirks.net>
Cc: <wtopa@mindspring.com>; Debian-User List <debian-user@lists.debian.org>;
<debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 1999 2:10 AM
Subject: Re: Suggestion for Newbie Guide Lines (ITP)
> On Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 03:58:22PM +0100, Patrick Kirk wrote:
> > If anyone has a few links that they think every newbie should have read,
> > please let me know and while I may not be able to package them, I'll
> > definitesly host them.
>
> I'd definitely be willing to maintain such a thing. It would require
> more input from others than the standard package, though, so I think
> the idea of a dedicated web page maintainer and a dedicated package
> maintainer would probably work well.
>
> I'm excited. This sounds like fun! I have lots of ideas, too.
>
> -Michael
>
> > > Quoting Colin Marquardt(colin.marquardt@gmx.de):
> > > > * Stephan Engelke <engelke@math.uni-hamburg.de> writes:
> > > >
> > > > > the most common problem I have encountered when suggesting Linux
as an
> > > > > OS to other people is, that even though there is a wealth of docs
out
> > > > > there, new users don't know where to look for them. Newbies need
to
> > > > > be told
> > > >
> > > > Indeed. Going a slight bit astray from the original topic, I´d
suggest
> > > > to add a few lines to /etc/motd, like:
> > > >
> > > > "If you are a new user to Linux, you´ll want to read the New-User
> > > > Guide. Do a `more /usr/share/doc/new-user-guide.txt'."
> > > >
> > > > This new-user-guide.txt would be a required package, and consist of
> > > > just a few pointers to the most important information, and with the
> > > > exact steps on how to read this information with a standard Debian
> > > > installation.
> > > >
> > > > This would also help in reducing the traffic on this and other
lists,
> > > > IMO.
> > > >
> > > > Colin
> > >
> > > Very good idea, Colin. That would be _much_ better than a weekly
> > > posting to the list! We would have to find a Maintainer to package
> > > it, of course.
>
> --
> Michael Stenner Office Phone: 919-660-2513
> Duke University, Dept. of Physics mstenner@phy.duke.edu
> Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305
>
>
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