Getting Started Guide - Looking for Feedback/QA

[Phil Bull]

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).

The important thing for now is reviewing the suitability of the material
and seeing how well it serves our users' needs.

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out-of-date, and your work looks like it would make a good drop-in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 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

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/people/philbull