Ububtu Basics

[Travis Newman]

Hello Doc team! I'm not sure who's in charge of taking new 
requests/ideas, so I'll just post it here. I emailed this proposal to 
Mako, and he suggested I try to get this integrated with the doc team.

Here's our proposal. shookmon (from the Unofficial Ubuntu Forums) and I 
have developed an idea for a documentation resource that would be 
accessible to people who have no computer knowledge at all. This solves 
the problem that most Linux documentation resources have, in that they 
assume a certain amount of experience to begin with. This is a rational 
assumption, since taking the extra time to explain to complete computer 
novices wouldn't bring in the profit they desire, because it would take 
up so much more of their time. Here are a few basic principles of our idea:

The documentation would start from installation, and cover basic usage 
at first, followed by more and more advanced topics, but never going TOO 
advanced.

It would be a very literal guide, laden with descriptive screenshots, to 
eliminate confusion

There would be an extensive editing routine to check for clarity, 
context, content, and useability.

It would NOT include anything out of warty-main and warty-restricted(or 
hoary-main, hoary-restricted when Hoary goes gold) to eliminate bugs and 
incompatibilities that may come up.

There will be a section for previous Windows users, explaining 
differences between the two and discussing problems that may occur for 
those switching. This will also include benefits of using Ubuntu over 
Windows, and the difference in filesystems.

There will always be open discussion for new sections and changes based 
on the needs of the userbase and you guys, the Ubuntu devs.

You can find more info here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=3991

What we're asking for is some kind of support from Ubuntu/Canonical. 
Obviously I'm not asking to be a Canonical employee (though I wouldn't 
complain. It'd sure be easier to keep up the pace), but we're asking for 
anything Canonical can provide us. What we would like is webspace 
really, because that's kinda expensive, and any other resources 
Canonical sees fit to provide, whether it be monitary contribution, 
pre-existing documentation, higher access, anything you can provide.

If you can't provide anything at this point, I completely understand. 
We're very committed to following through on this project, unless 
Canonical would rather we not, for some reason, and we will find a way 
to do it otherwise if you can't help out. I just decided that I'd lose 
nothing by seeing if Canonical could help out in any way.

Thanks for your consideration on this project! I look forward to hearing 
back from you about it.

Regards,
Travis Newman