User education on first boot post install

[Jeff Lane]

On Wed, 2010-06-23 at 12:21 +0200, Gareth McCumskey wrote:
> This is my first mail to this list so forgive me if this has already been asked 
> or discussed.

I don't recall this being discussed lately, and it's a great first
post :-)

> I was wondering if there was anything in the works that would provide a first 
> time user of Ubuntu some kind of guided tour style and/or information 
> resource, that can be cancelled of course if not needed, but would provide 
> someone with no experience of Ubuntu some basic information on the key 
> differences of Ubuntu vs other OS's (specifically Windows). Differences such as 
> not needing to go to websites to download and install software but rather use 
> a repository, what currently installed applications can do specific jobs, how 
> the menu system works, etc.

I'm rather keen on this as well, and it WAS discussed, to a degree at
least, during the Lucid cycle (but the subject came up way too late for
that, IIRC).

As a hobby, I teach "Linux Installation/Administration" a.k.a. Linux 101
so I'm very interested in projects like this that help new users get
familiar with the system.  I would certainly like to see some sort of
tutorial that runs on first login, with the obligatory "Click here to
disable this on future logins" checkbox.

A good example of how this would have been supremely useful... my mom.
My mom, on her own, installed 10.04 from a CD I gave them after I was
very VERY careful to say "Just boot the CD and try the live environment,
and if you want to install it, call me and I'll walk you through it."

So instead, she went through and did her own dual boot install.  This is
a woman who literally can't figure out how to program a cell phone or
VCR and has a 20 year old Microwave because the new ones are just too
complicated...

But she did well, and currently only uses the Windows 7 on her laptop
for playing some games she likes to play that are Windows only.
However, after she did install, she mentioned that she had to hunt and
click a lot to figure out what did what.

She DID mention that the Lucid UI was well done and easy to navigate,
but having never used Linux before, she was confused by a lot of the
menu entries, and was afraid to click on them in case they formatted her
hard disk or some other Bad Thing[tm].

It's cases like that that make me so very in favor of a new user
tutorial.  

I think my students would benefit from such a thing too, as
historically, I give them live CDs of two or three distros (usually
Fedora, Ubuntu and Open SuSE) and tell them to go home, boot the live
CDs and try out the different takes on UI and management tools as part
of their work throughout the semester.  Most of them invariably get as
far as booting the live CD before coming back a week later afraid to do
anything and full of questions like (what does that weird TV icon do?,
referring to a Terminal icon)...

Anyway, I'm glad you brought this up as it's definitely something that I
would love to see in a future release, and I'm sure that we are not
alone in that thought.

Cheers,

Jeff

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