Gentoo Archives: gentoo-installer

From: "Paul J. Wilson" <paulj.wilson@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-installer@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-installer] educating users
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 21:34:46
Message-Id: 51f84ab505091914344779adb1@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-installer] educating users by Michael Miller <1337mail@gmail.com>
1 The way I see it, the problem is not about the gentoo installer, but a
2 problem of perceptions between the developers and the users. There is a
3 further division between the "power users" and the "noobs".
4
5 It's easier said than done, but each side should step outside their own
6 experience. To a developer, "easy" meains opening VI and drawing on their
7 knowledge of hot keys and bash syntax. To the average user, "easy" means
8 selecting options from a menu , or not selecting anything at all to have
9 things turn out as intended.
10
11 Regular, everyday users tend not to have the time to spend on the finter
12 points of linux and gentoo in particular. If the aim of the gentoo installer
13 project is to make Gentoo more accessable to these types of users, then it's
14 not unreasonable to expect these users to reach out somewhere for
15 instruction. The fact that they DO reach out to the developers is an
16 indication that 1. the answers are not obvious to them and 2. they are
17 INTERESTED and willing to participate at some level. The fact that their
18 interest, ability or level of participation does not match the same
19 characteristics of the developers should not matter. Not everyone thinks
20 alike. Not everyone has the same interests. Almost everyone wants to
21 compute.
22
23 It's also obvious from the responses that some users do NOT find the
24 handbook accessable. This can't be simply explained away by lack of
25 intelligence. Again, what is obvious to some is not obvious to others,
26 especially those who are not trained to think in technical terms. Brushing
27 off the questions of every-day users as the work of "noobs" is a very easy
28 and sloppy thing to do.
29
30 There is a huge disconnect happening here. On the one hand, the Gentoo front
31 matter seems to state that Gentoo is "all about choices" and goes on to
32 strongly imply that the distribution can be all things to all users. There
33 are a sub-set of users who 1. don't find the detail and fine-point
34 instruction in the manual helpful 2. don't have the time to manually
35 configure everything or 3. are not computer literate. It's obvious that
36 there are large numbers of people who want to use gentoo but whose needs are
37 not being met. I have the impression that the gentoo-installer project is an
38 attempt to meet the needs of such users.
39
40 I applaud the efforts of the installer devs and Gentoo at large. I use
41 Gentoo on 5 machines, including this laptop. I think the installer is a
42 great idea.
43
44 I hope this honest and heartfelt criticism reaches you as intended: with
45 respect and earnestness. I've been lurking on the mailing list a long time
46 and I finally decided to throw in my two bits.
47
48 Take Care
49
50 Paolo
51
52 On 9/19/05, Michael Miller <1337mail@×××××.com> wrote:
53 >
54 > I dislike the idea of a quiz to use the installer. As much as I hate to
55 > admit it, I am a "newbie" to gentoo, to some degree. However, I did manage
56 > to fairly easily install it by reading the handbook. It is pretty much just
57 > following directions, being very time consuming(took me about 2-3 days to
58 > get my first gentoo box up). I think personally, that a special guide should
59 > be written for the installer detailing everything needed to be done. If you
60 > are very insistant upon getting rid of the "newbies" in the IRC channel, and
61 > insist on having some kind of quiz, I'd make a quiz to enter the IRC
62 > channel.
63 > Not to rant on, but my stance on gentoo, albeit against many of the
64 > developers, is that it is a fast operating system. That is, in my view, the
65 > only thing seperating it from other distros save for portage. Many people
66 > like to tweak every last bit of performance out of gentoo, which is great!
67 > However, I think gentoo should indeed be more user friendly. Don't get me
68 > wrong-I CAN install gentoo, and edit configuration files, but it is very
69 > time consuming, and not time efficent for me. I wish gentoo was very easy to
70 > install(like redhat), and included an easy to use configuration tweaker
71 > where you could EASILY change your cflags for basic optimizations for
72 > specific processors(you could select p4, amd64, etc etc). You would of
73 > course be able to manually edit it as well. The thing that I find so
74 > daunting about linux, as compared to windows, is the fact that you have to
75 > know what almost every single file does. Wanna change your sound card? You
76 > have to know where /etc/alsa is. It is these kinds of things that frustrate
77 > me. Don't get me wrong, I know MANY, if not all but me on this mailing list,
78 > are opposed to catering to end users who don't want to have to memorize a 40
79 > page guide to know how to install gentoo in their head, but I think it would
80 > be a good idea to have gentoo easy to configure. I'm not saying someone who
81 > doesn't know how to install Windows will know how to setup and run a gentoo
82 > installation, but I think it should be easier to run then it currently is.
83 > On another side note I things that the thing that is blocking linux from
84 > the end user are application installation, and driver installation. Come up
85 > with an easy way to do both of these, and i'll never use win32 again :).
86 > Again, I want to reidorate, I realize that the main focus of gentoo is to
87 > cater to so called "power users" who know everything about Linux, and tweak
88 > everything in it. I just wish that I could have a tweakable operating system
89 > without reading 40 pages each time I installed it!
90 > Sorry for the long rant :),
91 > Mike
92 >

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-installer] educating users Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@g.o>
Re: [gentoo-installer] educating users Zac Medico <zmedico@×××××.com>