On 11/10/2013 10:17 AM, thomas aylward wrote:
how does a novice begin with debian? Tom
I think there is some confusion that is introduced when we call a distribution like Debian an "operating system," which used to be a term used for the software that interacts with hardware, loads and runs other software, controls basic resources, etc. Debian is a collection of thousands of pieces of software, most of which are what used to be called "applications" and would have been considered separate from the "operating system" (1). There are good reasons for this, we all know that it makes a lot of sense to have a common distribution and update system for the OS, libraries, applications, all of the dependencies worked out and updates coordinated; and that this is really only possible with free software.
The reason why I bring this up is that when a user tries to switch from a proprietary OS to a free OS, the switching of the core operating system is likely nearly invisible to them; but they often are also switching many of the applications that they use every day, and this is where it becomes such a difficult transition and a steep learning curve.
But, some (many?) of these free software applications can also run on proprietary OSs (2). So, my advice to a novice who is using a proprietary OS and wants to begin with Debian, or any other free OS, is to start by using free software on their proprietary OS. Don't install an entire operating system on a virtual machine, don't install a multi-boot system, I think that without a _very_ motivated user, these efforts are usually abandoned. A live image is OK just to take a look, but is usually problematic to use as an ongoing every-day machine.
Instead, try using a free-software web-browser (Firefox & Chromium come to mind as cross-platform choices). Step by step, try using free alternatives to your main applications. I don't normally use proprietary OSs, so I don't know for sure which software that runs on Debian also has portability to proprietary OSs, but I think that LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Gimp, Pidgin all have versions for the major proprietary OSs and I'm sure that many others do as well. In many cases they may be far superior quality to the proprietary applications that the user is used to. If you're a developer, start using gcc or clang, and so forth. With each new application that is tried, give it time to get familiar with it, find the edge cases, get fast at doing your normal operations, so that when you try the next one, you don't mind the extra time to figure out its workflow. Switching to booting directly into a free OS should be the _last_ step, and if the user has already made the transition so that he or she is already using 90% of the applications that will be used in the new environment, it will be trivial and there is no need for virtual machines or live-boot images.
By trying to make the entire transition in one fell swoop, it is _vastly_ more difficult. People need their computers to do real work for them. If they are only trying to learn a new way to do one piece of the picture at once, it's tolerable. If every step of the way it's a frustrating experience due to lack of familiarity, the user will revert back to their familiar environment in short order, 9 times out of 10, and that will be the end of the experiment.
-- David(1): Admittedly there is no perfect criterion to differentiate between OS and application and I eschew the distinction anyhow [it reminds me of the artificial distinction between "systems programming" and "applications programming" which I also don't make -- to be a good programmer, you need the same skills for both so there's no such thing as an "application programmer"]. My point here is only that the usage of the term "Operating System" has become much more expansive and ambiguous over the last several decades -- although that trend started even earlier, e.g. with Unix's separation of the shell from the supervisor program (kernel) and the separation of the system commands ("ls", "ps") from the shell, leading to a whole blurry spectrum of "system" and "application" programs.
(2): I remember when the entire "GNU system" (as it was called then) ran essentially exclusively on top of proprietary OS's. You could buy it mail-order from the FSF on 9-track mag tape and compile it on your proprietary OS to get much improved versions of the standard Unix utilities such as cc, tar, make, etc. as well as GNU-only stuff like emacs. I initially adopted gcc mostly because it was almost the only way on my system to get ANSI C rather than K&R. So, while I don't do it and always recommend against it, I also don't let anyone tell me that there's something wrong or immoral with running free software together with proprietary software -- they may not like to admit it, but they _all_ did it themselves at one time.