Apologies in advance for the long rant... :-)
On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, Gavin Clark pushed some tiny letters in this order:
> >
> > An installation choice has been the best idea to come out of this thread. This
>
> How do we get this into 7.2?
>
I'm sure there's at least *some* developers at mandrakesoft reading this list
regularly? Hint-hint? ;-)
> >> now there's an idea. linux should have the command #tutorial nnn, like
man, > >> but it pops up a clearly written dummy's guide with lots of examples.
> >>
> >
> > I don't think there's a tutorial command
>
> Then I hereby propose it. I agree that there is a lot of documentation and
> help out there but you really have to hunt for it. It is scattered all over
> the place, most of it is on line so you need the network connection to be
> running. There is a need for clear and concise explanations and examples
> right at your finger tips. A public domain tutorial along the lines of a
> dummies book for each command, available from the command line, would be an
> immense help. The sheer number of UNIX books out there testify to the short
> comings of man pages, and the how-tos can't help if you're not sure what
> you're looking for.
Out of the box in KDE there's a 'Documentation' sub-menu directly on the
main K menu (maybe for GNOME too?) that has a detailed Mandrake user's guide
and reference, KDE help tutorial and application reference with search
capability, 'Rute' - a VERY detailed Linux newbies guide (in particular chapter
15 "Pre-installed Documentation" showing where to go for more info such as
/usr/doc ), a how-to list and GUI man page reader. All in the one place and all
located on the local hard drive. I'll admit that *some* documentation is a
little too terse for a non-technical person but the vast majority is very good
at explaining how the system works and what you can do with it.
If you're going to hypothesise that the quantity of books on the shelf in a
bookstore has a negative reflection on the quality of the system documentation
then don't overlook that books about Microsoft Windows and accompanying
applications probably out-number Linux books by 10 to 1.
>
> > The problem isn't with the lack of documentation out there, in my experience
> > it's that nobody bothers to read it before running to the nearest mailing
> > list/newsgroup/guru/whatever.
>
> I'll put my New Guy hat on and tell you why. ;-)
>
*snip*
>
> I've already gone through my learning curve so it's too late for me but as
> Linux get adopted more and more widely those using it will be less and less
> technically inclined, "RTFM" as an answer won't cut it - they won't even
> know there is one.
I've participated in Linux chat rooms and am involved in Linux discussions so I
know that the people with the freely given knowledge have a limited amount of
time and patience, after all they're only human. :-)
The way I see it, It breaks down roughly like this
- If you have a simple problem like "how do I get a directory listing?" that's
solved within a small amount of time the answer is almost never RTFM even though
it's a question asked over and over again. (and partly because it takes less
effort to type 'ls' than it does 'RTFM') ;-)
- If you have a more involved problem like "I want to write a Linux game or
GUI application in C, how do I do that?" the answer can only be given by a few
pointers to documentation and an essential 'RTFM'.
More importantly someone who truly wants to help an obvious newbie with a
request will also say something "and this is where you might find the
manual..." rather than just "RTFM". If Linux gets adopted as a mainstream
desktop operating system you can also be sure that people paid to render
technical support will exhaust every possible avenue before giving a RTFM
response.
>
> If you're going to lead the masses out of the darkness then you are going to
> have to hold their hand. A truly powerful system should do just that.
A truly powerful system also shouldn't cripple the way power users work just so
that newer users can migrate to the system as easy as cake. I agree that Linux
should be more forgiving for the newbie. I'm also hoping that Linux does move
towards the desktop. However if it's at the expense of the current
general system stability and/or power user effeciency then it's not worth it.
has been
Something that I forgot to mention in one of my other replies to is that I don't
think users are necessarily afraid of Linux and/or computers as much as they
are afraid of change. If you've been taught to do something one way and have
been doing it the one same way for years then of course something different is
going to take a little getting used to. I've seen complete computer novices
shake their head trying to work out how windows works when no-one is there to
teach them. Once they do know how it works then they're fine. The same thing
applies to Linux.
>
> All I'm asking for is that this thing be perfect, that shouldn't be so hard
> considering that half the world is working on it. ;-)
>
