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Web Site For Debian Newbies

Posted by Hemos on from the new-stuff-for-debianites dept.

lemox writes: "DebianHELP is a slash-style site that seeks to allay some of the problems new users face with Debian. There's not much there now, as they seemed to have launched only a few days ago, but it seems like it has a lot of potential. They need Debian-specific write-ups on many problems faced by new users, so here is your chance to make a contribution."

7 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Intuitive UI vs Docs. Use both by einhverfr · · Score: 3
    But I'm of the opinion that solving the problems faced by new users is best done at the OS level, not the documentation level.

    Both approaches are necessary in my opinion. Help files are included with Windows, MacOS, etc. because even when a system is easy to use, people need assistance. No interface will be easy for everyone who has never worked with it.

    Interface design needs continuous work in any OS, but many people unfamiliar with computers in general and easily intimidated by unfamiliar territory can become confused even when the right choices should be obvious. This is not a problem restricted to newbies. How many technically minded people panick when the computer does something they don't expect and make the problem worse than it is. Blaming the interface only goes so far.

    I don't mean to blame the users for being stupid. Most users are in fact rather intelligent. But panick clouds the head and hinders real troubleshooting. For this reason documentation is a real help.

    Also understand that there are many areas which may be easy and intuitive (like SWAT) once you know the basics of what you are doing that are beyond the scope of beginners. Does everyone need a full fledged web server operating on their machine? Should people who don't know what they are doing run Apache, with mod_perl and php connecting to a Postgres DB? Of course not. With servers, people should know a bit about what is going on before running them, if for no other reason than security. For these things, power is more important than intuitiveness, and documentation is a must.

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    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  2. Re:Excelent! by Kynes · · Score: 3

    > Excelent! We need good sources of documentation and HOW-TO for linux.

    something like, say, www.linuxdoc.org? :)

  3. Re:Maybe it's just me by jilles · · Score: 3

    You are absolutely right. Somehow, I never need any documentation whatsoever installing one of the windows variants. My network card, video card, sound card are pretty much standard and are recognized by the windows installation without a glitch. As soon as I pop in a linux distribution (I tried debian, redhat and mandrake very recently) I start running in to trouble (network card is not recognized, I'm asked to enter refreshrates for a pnp monitor, soundcard (sb16!, probably the most standard soundcard) is not configured by default and so on). That's not a documentation problem, but simply the result of immature installation tools. Now I realize that installation is not a top priority at debian, but for a mainstream distribution like red hat, this is becoming pretty much unacceptable behavior. Mandrake tries to fix some of this but is rather buggy to say the least.

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    Jilles
  4. DebianHelp vs DebianPlanet by doomy · · Score: 3

    What's the difference between this and Debian Planet. Seen it in the topic on OPN. I figure this must be the eh? Offical help site? Ideas?
    --

    --
    ...free your source and the rest would follow...
  5. Re:No help whatsoever... by thopkins · · Score: 3

    You don't live on the bleeding edge and run Woody. My woody has been quite stable.

  6. Ahh, some signal among the noise.. I hope... by TrIaX · · Score: 4

    The site, while pretty bare ATM, and a tad on the slow side, is an excellent start. There have been times when I started out with Debian that I was wondering "WTF?" and the answer been something simple like "you need to install the *-dev package to compile things against it" or something complex like having to touch various files during the kernel module probes when potato (back when it was unstable :) broke.

    I did notice on their banner that they have "debianHELP: Militantly FREE software help." in their top bar. I hope this means that they aren't going to reject helping those with questions on the non-free packages available, but instead allow questions/answers/writeups on ALL thing Debian.

    Being a long time Debian user, I'll probably start lending spare time to help with what they need help with as my way of giving back to a distribution that I've fallen in love with. I just hope it doesn't turn into the standard "newbie posts questions, regulars flame with RTFM!" type of environment.

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    Aluve, TrIaX

  7. debian help is a very good thing by daniell · · Score: 3
    the only odd thing about the organisation that Debian is is that the docs are a bit bad. They sort of rehash the same old docs and edit just a few things here and there, many of them are not clearly available in any html doc link, and are intended to be read once you've downloaded the installation. I think that a group of people out there specifically working to help keep people informed about where all the config files are and where the links to basic install information is would be quite helpful to those who want to try linux, and have heard that debian is better to use once its running than say red hat. Which is an opinion of course, but it would be a shame if they didn't get to experience the Debian dist just because the redhat dist has clearly addressed newbie issues.

    -Daniel