Getting Started Guide - Looking for Feedback/QA

[Dougie Richardson]

Phil Bull wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> On Tue, 2009-02-17 at 22:23 +0200, Avi Hein wrote:
>   
>> If it's original, than it's not based on other material. One doesn't
>> preclude the other, obviously the procedures are similar because it's
>> the
>> same program. That's why you can have many commercial versions of "How
>> to
>> use such and such program" and there wouldn't be any copyright issue,
>> so all
>> the more so when it's copylefted to begin with. Because neither
>> material
>> came from the other. Would also releasing my guide CC matter? As I
>> said, I
>> just picked what seemed to make sense - I don't expect my guide to be
>> widely
>> distributed in the current format.
>>     
>
> These seem to be relatively minor technical issues which we can work on
> at a later date, or which don't matter; I don't know why the discussion
> is concentrating on them. Also, the whole "quality of open source
> documentation" issue should be discussed in a different thread (if it's
> going to be discussed at all).
>   
Its similarity to current material and lack of definition, I feel is an 
issue.
> The important thing for now is reviewing the suitability of the material
> and seeing how well it serves our users' needs.
>   
Avi may have a point, there might be a need for a single installation 
guide book, it come quite high on Google searches.
> Avi, I've only had time to skim through the document, but it looks
> pretty good. The Switching from Windows document we currently have is
> out-of-date, and your work looks like it would make a good drop-in
> replacement. 
I would be against this in its current format.  I agree that the 
switching guide needs updated but this a solution heavily based on 
images.  Also, there is a lot of similarity with the Desktop Training 
project here, which several of us contributed to, is in DocBook and 
under the same license so could be more readily incorporated.
> I would like to give it a more thorough review, but I'm
> pretty swamped at the moment so it might take me a while. Here are a few
> issues that initially caught my eye, though:
>
>       * [p46] I wouldn't personally recommend that Ubuntu users install
>         AV software. The incidence of Linux viruses is currently so low
>         that it is a relatively ineffective security measure that will
>         do nothing but sap computing resources. This is subject to
>         change in the future, of course. I think it's much more
>         effective to educate users on administrator privileges and
>         third-party software, which are the most likely causes of
>         security issues for Ubuntu users.
>       * [p7] "open source solution" - I don't like the word
>         "solution" ;)
>       * [p7] "copy the disk image to your blank CD or DVD" - some users
>         copy the ISO file to a CD rather than burning it as an image,
>         and find that the CD doesn't boot. It would be useful to make it
>         clear that simply copying the file to a disc won't work.
>       * [p8] Point 3 should probably note that a live copy of Ubuntu
>         will boot before the installation screen will be available.
>       * I think that the Dual Booting section duplicates too much
>         material. It would be preferable to reference the material from
>         the previous "Installing" section.
>       * [p29] References to "quick start menu". The launchers you're
>         referring to are just panel applets, and aren't grouped into a
>         physical "menu" as such. Also, "taskbar" should be referred to
>         as the "window list".
>       * [p34] I don't think that there's any need to instruct users on
>         how to add more workspaces in an introductory guide such as
>         this. I think it's more useful to tackle the concept of
>         workspaces, which a lot of new users seem to have problems with.
>       * [p38] I think it would be more logical to tackle adding
>         repositories after the discussion of how to add/remove packages.
>       * [p43] I think that there's a package in the Ubuntu repositories
>         which installs proprietary Flash, which would be easier.
>       * A section on "Getting help and support" at the end of the
>         documentation might be useful for some users.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Phil
>
>