On Wednesday 18 October 2006 05:41, you wrote: > On 2006-10-17, Goswin von Brederlow > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [snip] > > > Anyway, the usual way to detect a newbie and give help to them seems > > to be to assume everyone a newbie and give little hints, startup tips, > > ... till they learn enough to turn them off. For examples see gimp or > > mc. > > > > PS: One of the hints better be how to turn the hints off. :) > > Someone suggested to me off-list that perhaps all we need is to provide > a pointer to more newbie help in /etc/issue. Perhaps that would be the > easiest to implement, and the easiest for users to disable :-), no?
As already suggested, desktop environments could/should have a help/tips display that's turned on by default for new users. What's really needed is better help for newbies dumped unexpectedly at the command-line because X wasn't installed/properly configured/didn't start. I'd suggest only 1-2 lines of login help in /etc/issue, and command-line help (equal to 1-2 lines of text saying type xxx for help) in /etc/motd. xxx might display a help file/command line guide, or start a basic tutorial, or a special newbie shell environment. At its simplest it could just show a 80x24 page of help text containing basic commands and pointers to more help. Andrew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]