William H Bouterse wrote:
>
> Is there any thought to having ONLY
> first-time users attempt to install and use basic
> L-M setup?
That's one option. The other which I practice, is to sandbox my mind and do the
install without trying anything a total newbie wouldn't; it's actually quite
easy if you just focus strictly on the context of what you see, hear and read.
Imagine not cheating on a test...
> I have been trying to spread the word about
> Linux and Linux-Mandrake in paticular for years but have found,
> unfortuantely fairly often, even highly intelligent people,
> some with advanced education levels and professionals in the use
> of technology , CANNOT GET AN INSTALL OF LINUX UP
> AND RUNNING AND THEN USE IT .
Totally agree. I'm about to help my sister in Canada install LM7.2 when it hits
the street; the problem is that I'll be doing this remotely from NC. She's
never used Linux; but is determined to make the switch because M$ finally pissed
her off for the last time. She run's her startup business from a wheelchair at
home, so she is going to rely heavily on me now that her son is off to college.
My concern is that for the initial install, I can only give guidance and let her
fly solo... That's why I stress the install/upgrade issues.
> Keep up the great work People.
> This a great distro of a great OS.
Seconded! My first paid distro was RH4.1, then several others to 5.2 after
which I bought LM6.0 and 6.5 which I liked better. The reason I haven't
purchased 7.0 or 7.1 is that I've had too many problems with install/upgrade.
However, what I like best about Mandrake is that they *listen* and do a great
support job. I've gotten the "shove off" from RedHat once too many times to
ever go back to that distro; RH doesn't support beyond the newbie level IMO.
That said, I filed a bug on: install via pcmcia/ftp fails in stage2 ("install
exited abnormally -- received signal 9")... this level of install problem
should be in the show-stopper category; but I'll leave that call to LM.
I really want to buy copies of 7.2; but 7.2b3 doesn't cut it. If I can't
install a distro on my least critical machines, it doesn't get on my main one.
So far, I'm chomping at the bit to see 7.2... but gotta get past the
install....
Pierre
