Re: Suggestion for Newbie Guide Lines (ITP)
On Thu, Jul 22, 1999 at 09:32:34AM +1000, Doug Young wrote:
> 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 !!!!!!!!!!!
I agree. In fact, here is something I sent to Patrick offline
yesterday in response to a list of items to be included.
I would welcome any suggestions at all. We had taken the discussion
about the content and structure of newbie-doc off the list, but it
seems the list is still interested. I suggest that those who would
like to be involved in this more permanently let me know, and I'll
start constructing a "mini-list" that we can fall back to when the
interest dies down on debian-user.
-Michael
Snip from my mail to Patrick:
----------------------------------------------------------------
All of these sound great. My thoughts have mostly been about
structure. Most of the info that any newbie will ever need already
exists, but
1) they aren't aware that it exists
2) they don't know where it is
3) It's too technical or too big
What do you think about:
a) using html (this would help us -- we'd just mirror each other)
b) having a table of contents and index ( <- index might be hard )
c) trying to keep the documentation very short (ideally a page or
less) and step by step, with links to more complete info.
>
>
> ----- 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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> >
>
>
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--
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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