Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: How to improve the trustees

[George Prowse]

Steve Long wrote:
> George Prowse wrote:
>> Roy Bamford wrote:
>>> On 2008.02.03 16:49, Matthew Summers wrote:
>>>> Roy Bamford wrote:
>>>>> Many new users come to gentoo as their first Linux. Many of them
>>>>> are poorly informed about both Linux and Gentoo - I don't know how
>>>>> to reach this group *before* they start asking for help in #gentoo
>>>>> and on the forums. Thats the sort problem we have to solve.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Roy,
>>>>
>>>> Towards a solution to this particular issue above, I suggest Gentoo
>>>> provides a documentation project (possibly) entitled "Learning Linux
>>>> with Gentoo".  Within this we could easily address many issues faced
>>>> by new Linux/Gentoo users.
> <snip>
>>>> As always, I offer my assistance/support in the aforementioned
>>>> endeavor.
>>>>
>>> Matthew,
>>>
>>> I think this is a good idea. However, one of the issues is that a body
>>> of new users is not even aware of the existance of the current
>>> documentation.
>>>
>>> e.g. How to head off questions like "I've just started the minimal CD
>>> to install Gentoo but all I get is a black screen with some text at the
>>> bottom. Where do I click to install Gentoo?"
>>>
>>> I'm not 100% sure it wasn't a troll but as this represents a class of
>>> problems seen on the forums, I'm sure that some are genuine.
>>>
>> Maybe a quick Q&A for newcomers is needed? A kind of precis of what
>> there already is with links to the longer documents?
>>
> I have to say all this sounds like lowering the bar a little too far. While
> I am all for introducing newbs to Gentoo (in fact I've just got a
> 67-year-old and his wife, who don't know computers at all, hooked on Gentoo
> KDE;) that's not the same as them learning to install and administer a
> Genoo Linux system.
>
> I'd favour a "Why Gentoo Is Not For You" page, done as politely and
> respectfully as we can, pointing out that some basic *nix knowledge,
> including at the CLI, is pretty much mandatory for someone to be able to
> maintain a Gentoo box properly. (I'm not interested in the corner-cases
> where someone did actually manage to learn Linux on Gentoo first; sometimes
> exceptions prove rules.) This is not to be elitist: it's simply so that
> distros like Mandriva or Ubuntu, which /are/ setup for computing newbs, can
> fulfil that part of the learning curve.
>
> I don't think Gentoo could ever be at that stage until and unless it has the
> equivalent of the Mandrake Control Centre. #gentoo-guis is working towards
> that imo, so join there and help out if you want to make Gentoo "just
> work". himerge is really lush, if a bit tricky to install; insns at:
> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Himerge
>
>
I disagree, if you tell people what is needed to administer a Gentoo
system then they may choose an easier distro but will do so with an
informed opinion.

Anyway, Gentoo can be picked up within a few hours so it's not exactly
that advanced, the configs and portage are the only 2 things they really
need to understand.


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