[doc] [Draft] Ubuntu-specific documentation to work on

[Enrico Zini]

Hello,

Besides what we've been discussing today at the meeting, these are the
documentation ideas that have been bouncing between the /UDP page and
mails from me and Sivan; now that we have met, it's good to involve
everyone in the discussion.
If everything goes well, this could become a short-term working plan.

 - Ubuntu First Steps (installation guide)
   Short document, mainly about troubleshooting.  If the description of
   the installation itself can't be short, it means that our installer
   is too complex, and needs to be fixed.
   Ideally, we could have 2 pages with a step by step presentation of
   "when it goes well", and all the rest about "what to do when it goes
   wrong", with a well made index covering particular hardware, error
   messages and other troubles we see that can happen and we can't avoid
   by acting on the installer.
   The installation guide could also include and stress a "get online in
   the community" part, framing "joining the others" as an important
   part of getting the system completely working.  We may even consider
   creating an ubuntu-welcome mailing list, and use that in the examples
   for the documentation.

 - Stretch your arms with Ubuntu (a look around)
   Between installing and everyday usage: a sort of "stretch your arms"
   in form of a tutorial with a small sequence of simple and useful
   things to show off what is in the system.

 - Ubuntu Everyday Usage (user's guide)
   I see this as a collection of best practices, indexed with goals.
   Not "how to use a word processor", but "printing a letter"; not
   "image manipulation", but "my digital pictures collection".
   Two use cases:
    - I have an itch, I find it on the index and then read the best way
      to scratch it.
    - I have bought a computer, installed Ubuntu, and I want to cherry
      pick what seems cooler for me to do, and quickly see how to do it
   Since documentation exists outside of Ubuntu, we have a chance of
   being coincise, and then pointing to other existing things.  There
   are already nice OpenOffice guides around, so we don't have to
   rewrite them and we can just point to them "to learn some more".
   Learn is important here: it makes explicit that this documentation is
   intended to address how to "do".  If someone wants to "learn" as
   well, we can point them to the right place.

 - My Ubuntu (tweaking and customizing)
   "make your personal computer really /personal/"
   Here go all the customization issues:
    - to make your computer look cool and blend well with the colors of
      your jacket.
    - to tailor the interaction to one's needs, creating shortcuts and
      automating things one does often
    - to make your system match your quirks, instead of adoping quirks
      to match your system
   Depending on how Launchpad will turn out to be, I'm actually
   caressing the idea of teaching of to really make "My Ubuntu", then
   burn it on CD and install it anytime you want with the right
   configuration, or show it off with a live CD.


Note that there may be some nice overlapping of patterns in these items:

 - the "First Steps" could have a continuously updated troubleshooting
   part collecting the installing problems that come out during the
   distro lifetime ("if it's too late to fix it, document it")

 - "Stretch your arms" could also be a nice addition to the live CD,
   guiding curious people in having a look at the system

 - "Everyday Usage" could be the point where we collect and share best
   practices and everyday creativity, from the community, to the
   community.  Tips&Tricks (keyboard shortcuts, useful lesser-known
   packages) could fit there as well.

I invite fellow Ubuntu devels to tell something about the feasibility of
the last part about Launchpad, since I don't know precisely yet what's
coming out of it.


Ciao,

Enrico

--
GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico at debian.org>
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