[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Installation Party Summary



Hi!

Or I hope you don't mind me Ccing this to the list as others may find 
it interesting.

> Well, 
> 	you have to consider the point, linux (and unix in general) is not
> 	an OS for newbies.people who depend on us in order to defrag and
> repartition, sont know what to do in a later stage, when other problems
> occure.
>  so, what we need to decide is for whom do we create installation parties
> ?
> the total beginner, or for the intermidiate user ? (i hope i spelled that
> right. ;)).

Actually I was under the impression that the installation party was 
for people who need (or would like to have) a flavor of Unix on their 
PCs. I gather now this was not the case.
I know man people who have worked on "Real" computers using Unix, VMS 
and what not and that can certainly do piruets around me when it 
comes to system administration and networking (which is not that 
difficult actually), yet many of them are completely PC and PC 
hardware illiterate.
I was also under the impression the installation party's purpouse was 
to teach people how to install linux and the basics of linux, not a 
McDonald style 'serve as many as fast as possible'. I believe anyone 
who will actually use linux (as opposed to merely having it laying in 
his/her HD) will have enough presence of mind and know how to eventualy 
install linux by themselves, on the other hand the first time I installed
 Linux it took me a whole weekend most of which was spent just figuring 
out what packages I needed, and I had to reinstall (actually repartition)
a month latter because I had installed a whole bunch of things I didn't 
need, my linux partition was too small and my swap was too big. I could've 
saved a lot of time if someone had sat with me for half an hour (not 
that I minded wasting that time, but installing an OS is not 
everybody's idea of a fun weekened), it would also have saved me a 
whole lot more of time and frustration if someone had mentioned that 
all I needed to get started could be found in the Linux Intallation 
and Linux Network Administrator Guides.
Also note that the answers to many simple questions such as: what is the 
difference between a distribution and linux are not instantly 
obvious.



Eli Algranti <OR17367@elbit.co.il>

Last night as I lay in bed looking at the stars I asked myself,
"Where the hell is my roof?"