[techtalk] request for ideas

[Caitlyn Martin]

Hi, everyone,

> > For example:  ME: "You have to mount the disk before you can read it."
> > HE:  "Huh?  Mount?  What is mount?  It's already in the drive!"
> > "Recompile the kernel?  I don't want popcorn right now!"
> > "The scheduler?  My calendar thingy on my Palm Pilot is good enough for
me!"
> > "Cron?  Oh, you mean Tron, the guy that lived inside the computer!"
> > "Why do I need a driver?  I can drive, as long as it's an automatic."
>
> Somebody with those kinds of questions probably shouldn't be messing
around
> with Linix, IMHO (and I say that as probably one of the least Unix-savvy
> people here).

I disagree.  For a newbie, starting from scratch, KDE is not harder to learn
than the Windows GUI.  Netscape is Netscape, regardless of the platform,
Star Office or WordPerfect aren't harder than MS apps, and so on...  Let's
reach out to those who aren't techno-savvy.  These $200 Linux boxes that The
Linux Store and BuyPogo are selling are perfect for them, provided a good
manual is available.  Deb's book could be that manual.

> On the other hand, maybe some good documentation could change
> that...

Yep.  Also, let's face it, Windows doesn't give a lot of opportunity to
understand what is going on.  If someone is curious, using Linux they could
advance from clueless to basic understanding much more quickly.

I've kept out of this conversation, but a real beginners' book should cover
installation for all the major distros that are newbie friendly (Red Hat,
Caldera, Mandrake, and Turbo Linux at least), how to configure the GUI (KDE
probably) and add basic apps.  It should cover how to get a printer going
and how to get to the internet, the things most run of the mill users do.

BTW, why do so many of you find PPP hard?  I thought kppp wasn't any worse
than filling in the boxes on a Windows or OS/2 dialer.  OK, I used to dial
in using SLIP, and I had to write a script for dip to do it, but that was
then and this is now.  For a newbie, go with the graphical stuff.

Regards,
Caity





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