Dual Boot Problem

[Karl Hegbloom]

On Fri, 2005-12-30 at 15:23 +1100, William Grant wrote:
> I couldn't have said it any better myself. Those friends are completely
> wrong and obviously have no idea, or are being deliberately misleading.

I don't believe that's the problem.  What I think it is... is that the
friend is not starting with first principles and vocabulary, then
building upon that on up to the actual explanation.  People are not born
knowing how to operate a computer.  A computer is always going to be a
complicated tool.  It cannot, by it's very nature, ever be an
"appliance" and still be useful enough to matter.  Thus, to utilize it
effectively requires a certain amount of education.

It amounts to a language problem; not just with translation between a
native language and English when communicating via email, but with
teaching and learning the terminology, jargon, syntax, and semantics of
computer operation.

Too many people, at this point, have very little knowledge about what is
really happening behind the surface of the GUI on their screen.  It's a
total mystery.  In order for them to grok it, you must start by
explaining bits, bytes, how text characters and numbers are represented
as bytes of information in the computer memory, about the storage
hierarchy --- CPU registers, cache, RAM, and hard drive --- and a
plethora of other vocabulary and concepts that all add up to a better
picture of what's really happening.

Who can explain the boot process?  What happens when I turn on the
computer's power in the morning?  But before I can understand that, I
must know what "software" is, and have a simple notion in mind of
"assembly language instructions", "memory locations", "disk sectors",
"BIOS", "input/output"...  "multiprogramming", "operating system", etc.

So, in order to make Ubuntu Linux more natural to use, we must help the
new Gnu's obtain the foundation knowledge it requires.  Think about how
much you know about your bicycle, an electric commuter train, an
elevator, or an automobile, despite the fact that you are probably not a
mechanical engineer or even a repair mechanic.  (nor are you likely to
be an atmospheric pollution control expert or natural resource
conservationist, if you actually drive an automobile very often.) It's
like that; a little more to it than knowing what to feed your horse,
assuming the horse's mother taught it what to eat so it would grow and
stay healthy.  We're not born knowing that either...  We must have
learned every little thing we know; not everyone has learned the same
exact set of knowledge.

If I have two apples, and I give you one, we each have one apple.  If I
have two ideas and I give you both of them, we both now have those two
ideas, plus any others the new ideas trigger within your mind, provided
you share them with me.

-- 
Karl Hegbloom <hegbloom at pdx.edu>