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Linux Desktop Guide
codergeek42 writes "The International Open-Source Network has created a desktop manual aimed at end-users with little or no prior knowledge of PCs. This manual goes through using The Fedora Project to do things from file-management to using the internet (as in browsing the WWW and using email), how to use the OpenOffice.org office suite, and even a basic intro to using the shell. This is definitely a step in the right direction for GNU/Linux, and the Free Software and Open-Source Software movements. And the cool part is that the entire thing is under an attributions-required OSI-approved Creative Common license, and is available in .sxw (OpenOffice.org Writer) or PDF formats."
This kind of stuff is a great step in the right direction, but lots of people in the target demographic would still prefer a dead-tree version. I'd really like to see a couple of those big, glossy, step-by-step picture books put out for Linux. There's a bunch for Win/Mac already, so I'm sure it'll just be a matter of time.
Does Linux have top home marketshare? No.
Does Linux have top education marketshare? No.
So is the chance that people's very first system will be Linux high? No.
Does this make this whole thing pointless? Yes.
What do stores sell a new user if they don't know what they want? Windows. Therefore they will learn Windows. The only way they'll find out about this report is if they go online and find it, and then if they're not a techy user, they're not going to want to install something like an OS for themselves. This is a pointless exercise to make the open-source community hope for an influx of new users, when the fact is while stores still sell Windows machines, while mummy and daddy still have a Windows machine in the living room, while little Johnny's school uses Windows machines... Microsoft's monopoly is self-sustaining.
It doesn't matter how many guides you put out for Linux aimed at the 'new user', there are no users who've never used a computer before who are likely to run Linux - they're going to run what the store tells them to run, or what the computers in their house already run - Windows. The monopoly self-sustains. Unless all us nerds train our kids from birth to use *nix, and they all train their kids, etc, etc, etc, only Microsoft can destroy their own monopoly. Our only hope is that a catastrophic worm makes it impossible to ever use Windows, as other than that, reguardless of how many 'Linux for Total Newbies' PDFs people put out, those 'total newbies' will be reading it from a Windows machine, and the vast majority of them will be too scared or too stubborn to switch.
This will probably get modded troll, but that's the way it is - this is the wrong approach to be taking, and for all the people us few thousand nerds convert (very few), there's going to be a few thousand more kids growing up using mummy and daddy's Windows machine, perpetuating Microsoft's mindshare. We need to find a way to deal with it, and this is not it.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
This is an admirable effort, however why Fedora for a beginner's distro? The problem I see is that Fedora is just getting it's feet wet and entire reinstalls are needed to update from core 1 -> 2. This harks back to my days with Red Hat 5 and Mdk 6. Without trying to start a flamewar, I really think a Debian based system with Synaptic setup for updating is the best solution. Lastly, I don't know if a beginner's guide should include the commandline, that will likely scare some off. Let them get completely comfy in the GUI, then let them start exploring off the path.
Still, efforts like this NEED to be undertaken, if it's one thing OSS projects often lack is documentation.
CV*)($#B
free ipod and free gmail!
Would the average home user even be capable of knowing if his/her Linux box had been "0wned" ?
Any recommendations?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Some of you guys may not suggest Fedora for a linux beginner, but wait, I have seen quite a few users hop on to linux, completely abandoning Windows right with Fedora Core 1, and they are actuallly happy with it!
Installing applications are not that hard unlike the earlier days. I recommend rpm.pbone.net to find your applications packaging for Fedora, I have been 99.99% successfull! And with the brand new Yum, staying upto date is always a breeze.
I also recommend adding Dag Wieers repository in your yum configuration and this particular one releases very useful applications/updates. Needless to stay, once you load fancy themes and eye-candy like gDesklets you really can grab the eyes of people around you while giving you a pleasurable user experience.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
I think this is a step in the right direction, but I think it would be even better if there is a distrobution aimed specifically at home linux users, with strong community support.
I have been using linux for about 5 years, and I have used most of the major distros for a while (Slackware, Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo). One of the things I find lacking is a friendly support group that doesn't just tell you to "RTFM, you n00b!".
I think Gentoo is definitely heading in the right direction, so far the gentoo folks have been more than helpful, and *very* friendly too, which is rare in my experience. But Gentoo is still too much a tech-savvy distro, if we could have something that's like Mandrake or Lindows, with a friendly cummunity, we may have something there.
I have been trying to convince some of my friends to switch over to Linux, the gamer types always complain about not being able to play their favorite games. I also have some people at work who are trying to switch over to Linux at home. They all have a common problem: when they are stuck, they don't know who/where to ask. Some of them got very discouraged by the responses they get on some of the forums, and went straight back to Windows. I spoke to some of these people and offered to help them, but one of them told me "you Linux users are a$$holes! I am stickign with Windows."
Again, I applaude those who have put great effort into this user guide, and for Linux to become a big desktop player, I think all of us need to be patient with the new-comers and do a little more hand-holding.
just my 2 cents.
What forced upgrades? I still run FC1 on a machine, its the msot stable OS i've ever used, well its on par with Debian Stable. I have FC2 on my laptop. Both Fedora machines run perfect and there has never been a forced upgrade. Up2date is like windows update, except it updates everything on your system, instead of what MS wants updated. And you get to pick and choose. Nothing is ever forced on you, ever. I personally use apt because my roots in linux are in debian, and I use debian daily, but for an end user, you just cant beat Fedora. Suse is nice but I have my issues with it. Mandrake is the only other non-MS OS I'd recommend to a typical user. People keep saying that Fedora is bleeding edge, and it is if you want it to be, but it can also move at a slower pace if you'd like and every Core so far has been extreemly stable. Saying Fedora is bleeding edge is like saying Debian is bleeding edge, its up to you if you wanna run stable, testing or unstable, and Fedora defaults to stable, and everythign is extensively tested at RH. Also, dealing with RH developers is such a nice experience as compared to dealing with the typical arogant Debain dev.(Not all Debian devs are that way, but more then I'd like)I don't see the problem here.
Regards,
Steve
I think I'll elaborate on this a bit more. No computer newbie these days should be using an install cd and rolling the dice. With Knoppix you can see approximately how well everything will work beforehand. This is the be-all end-all of software installation!
I haven't tried Knoppix recently, so I don't know what has been done, but this is the ideal. We want a polished install program, which can handle partitioning with an icon on the desktop "Install to Hard Drive". Debian repositories should be automatically queried, and security updates downloaded automatically. It needs an "update software" program which shows a list of programs (not libraries), and installs necessary updates. Then it needs a "new software browser" which can browse and search the library of available programs (not libraries) and can install them. This would be it.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
...having a graphical explanation for a graphical user interface. Seems a natural anyway.
Long time ago, not sure which version, 95 maybe, a friend of mine had a VCR tape he got mailorder that walked you through a lot of windows stuff, it was quite good really, as you could set up your machine next to the Tv and play along with it.
My company uses Mandrake for some of the servers, and all of our desktops. The problem we are running into now is that, Mandrake has officially stopped supporting some of the older versions (prior to 9.0). We have a few servers that were still stuck on 8.1, and we were forced to go through a rather painful upgrade (no, it's not as easy as putting in a newer MDK CD, that actually broke the system).
:)
And we are getting ready now because 9.0 will soon be discontinued as well (or has it been discontinued already?)
This would not have been a problem if the upgrade option actually works. When upgrading one of our 9.0 machines to 9.2 (by putting in a MDK 9.2 CD), glibc broke and we couldn't figure out why... so we had to do it again, build a 9.2 machine, and copy data from the 9.0 ones. this sucks. big time.
I have had better luck with upgrading on Debian, and I wish my boss could agree with me... he loves that i586 extension on Mandrake, and seeing i386 makes him nervous.
I run Gentoo at home, and upgrading is *VERY* easy
# emerge world
done.
I think this guide is a fantastic idea for people like my uncle. The guy absolutely hates Microsoft, for a variety of reasons that will be familiar to most Slashdot readers. But he has never switched to anything else because he's too afraid of losing compatibility, not being able to use MS Office, etc. I should say he *was* afraid, because I recently gave him an old G3/500 iBook running Mac OSX, and he loves it.
Now he is ready to take his old Wintel box and put Linux on it. This manual will be perfect. I can pass it his way, have him give it a read-through, and then I'll go over to his place and we'll run through a Linux installation together.
There are a variety of folks out there who have a strong dislike for Microsoft products, but have no real experience with anything but Microsoft. They know that many pundits say OS X is a better user experience. They know that Linux is out there too. But they need all the help they can get in pushing past the extremely strong inertia that Microsoft has created.
You are quite right in saying that "the vast majority of them will be too scared or too stubborn to switch," but I believe that if there are multiple avenues (in the true *NIX tradition) for people to take in their quest to find alternatives to Microsoft, so much the better. Linux has never been about "The One True Way" and I think it's a bit much to expect that we will ever find "a way to deal with it." Why not present multiple paths?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Do what I do for my grandma. I made her a "custom" desktop that has very few very large icons to launch the programs she uses. The pc is setup with gdm and autologin. It's gentoo. Sure, my grandma has no idea what's going on. But I have some cron jobs in there doing routine maintenance and e-mailing me. And on occasion I ssh in and do a little emerge -uDva world.
Linux is designed as a multi-user system. The best way for it to work is via the client server model. You want someone who knows what they are doing to maintain the system itself, because it will never be easy. Then life for the clients is a dream come true. Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim, rox, xmms, giftui and gimp. Maybe sunbird in the future. 99% of people can get by on just that and be happy forever. Especially since its incredibly fast, feature rich, good looking, stable and secure.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
If the user is going to install it themselves, I'd suggest Libranet. It's a customized debian that has a lot of user-friendly stuff put in it (easy setup for PPP, Flash, fonts, etc). The updates are debian so you know they're gonna be around in a 3 years -- although note that libranet encourages users to use libranet repositories, since they customize their apt-get stuff for their distro (it's not a straight stable or unstable tree, I mean.)
Red Hat fucks around with their plans a bit much for my liking, and pay distros (like SuSE, which someone else suggested) are really good but you can't be sure that Novell won't trash suse or sell it to SUN or whatever.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
"!" after a command in vi usually means "do the operation without prompting", or, to put it another way, forcibly do the operation, even though you may lose information (e.g., ":w!" will overwrite a file that you have opened read-only (i.e., with "view"), or that you indicated was read-only with the ":se readonly" command).
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Actually, after following steps 1,2,3,5 and 6, my Dad's laptop still:
-didn't have a working modem
-didn't have a working wireless card
-didn't have working bluetooth
-displayed at 640x460 in 256 colours
Software I then had installed amounted to:
-notepad
-wordpad
-paint
-windows media player
-internet explorer
-outlook express
After installing Mandrake 10.0 on it:
-modem didn't work (winmodem, par for the course - he doesn't need it now so I haven't installed the vendor's linmodem driver yet but it does work onmy laptop of similar model)
-wireless didn't work (Intel Pro Wireless 2200)
-displayed at 1600x1200 instead of 1680x1050 (so you had to scroll the screen to see the whole desktop).
-bluetooth did work (after installing kdebluetooth from the CDs it was immediately useable)
Software I had installed amounted to:
-Full office suite
-development environment (my dad develops a bit of software in C++/OpenGL)
-Full Tex editing environment
-Choice of better internet browsers
-Choice of better mail client with built-in spam detection
-mathematical software (Octave etc)
-choices of multimedia software
-
To get all devices working under Windows XP I had to load all the driver CDs HP shipped with the machine.
To get the remaining hardware working under linux I had to download a driver for the wireless card and adjust the screen resolution.
So, it looks like linux actually wins with your instructions (and this is pretty recent hardware).
Now, my Dad is technically inclined, but doesn't really have much Linux experience.
My mom's machine is next.
My next stop on the Linux train will be Gentoo, if it comes to that.
IMHO you should try this anyway. I'd been using Mandrake for years when I tried Gentoo earlier this year, and it isn't hard to use for people that know what they're doing on Mandrake.
I have seen benefits that I didn't appreciate before I tried it, such as the design of the Portage system which means that each Gentoo install contains all of the build information for the whole distribution, and is simple to extend yourself.
Actually, it would be good to see a distribution like Mandrake switch to using Portage because it makes installation of updates (for which there aren't binary packages) so smooth.
Portage is a better design than RPM, which Mandrake currently use for historic reasons. They could maintain their own repository and distribute using binary packages on CDs as they do now.
- Brian.