Hi all. My 2c below.... On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:37:41 Per Eriksson wrote: > Valden Longhurst skrev: > > Opps, I accidentally skipped the granting permissions step which > > should be in the Linux instructions as well. If you choose to provide > > "System Requirements" then don't forget them. Currently, the HTML > > code has them as URLs pointing to nothing really. > > Hey, I just got an idea. Maybe we should stop being old fashioned and > show the user how to unpack and install using the graphical side of the > operating system? I bet 90% of all the users have a graphical > environment even if they like to code...
I use the graphical tools almost exclusively (I'll happily use a CLI for some functions, for example I use urpmi for a quick install of something I need). If we want to see a greater adoption of Linux in its various flavours, then we need to focus on using the graphical tools provided with the various distros, and move the non-graphical instructions to the Admin guide(s). Face it, the average end user is completely dumbstruck by such a seemingly simple statement as "Open a terminal...". Most ordinary end users will say "WTF?!?!?! What does that mean?" and give up. > > I propose to change these to something like "how to unpack using a > preinstalled unpack utility" in your favourite window manager. It would > focus on GNOME, with a small note about that the method is very similar > on most modern Linux desktops. Why this pre-occupation with Gnome? Just because certain (IMO second-rate) distros use that as the default, does *not* mean we should focus on it. I think there are probably as many users of KDE as there are of Gnome (possibly more, actually). And yes, I have tried both. In essence, we should *not* /focus/ on any single WM or distro. We need to have two separate sections for the extraction process (FileRoller or whatever the default Gnome archiver is currently) and Ark for KDE users (the procedure might be similar, but the interface is different). Then we need to have some tool-specific sections. For example, there needs to be a section on using Rpmdrake (Mandriva), YaST, etc., starting with instructions on how to set the extraction directory as a repository (I always extract the the same directory, and have that directory set as an update source, as an example). If needed, I could work on the section dealing with Mandriva (which would probably be of use to the Francophone group too), since that is my preferred distro (I've been trying different distros for about 12 years now). But, to return to my first point, the normal end user is confused when they are told to do something at the command line. Most "younger" users have never even seen a command line, really only those who have used DOS (or VMS, or Unix) have any knowledge of typing commands into a CLI, and we are in the minority. The User Guide *must* focus on th needs of the majority, and they are the ones who really cannot be expected to understand how to use the command line. > > Best > Per > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org -- Alex Fisher Co-Lead, CD-ROM Project OpenOffice.org Marketing Community Contact Australia/New Zealand http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
