installation FAQ

[Phil Bull]

Hi Murray,

On Sat, 2010-04-03 at 15:19 +1100, Anthro Pologist wrote:
> I've been sitting on this for a while but it's not going to improve
> without feedback so it's time to put it forward.
> 
> I'm assuming the audience is users familiar with computers but not
> with Ubuntu.  They will most likely be Windows users looking to try
> linux but are not sure how to go about it and want to be sure they're
> not going to lose everything in the process.
> 
> Have a look at what I've done and let me know how I should improve it.
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AugustinaBlair/InstallGuideFAQ

Thanks for working on this. Can you remind me what context this document
is intended to be used in? I've seen so many installation-related docs
over the past few weeks that I've lost track...

A couple of comments on the material:

A couple of the answers completely depend on visiting links. For
example, to answer their question "Will Ubuntu run on my system?",
almost all readers will have to click a link. I think it's best to
provide enough information there on the page to answer the question in a
basic manner first, so the reader has some immediate assistance. You can
leave more advanced matters to be handled in the detailed topic that you
link to. If you can't answer in a basic/undetailed manner, then you're
forced to link anyway.

In this case, I would include text which reads something like "We
recommend that your computer should have at least 384MB of system memory
(RAM), 8GB of free hard disk space and a 700 MHz or faster processor to
be able to run Ubuntu, although you may be able to get it running on
computers that don't meet this standard. You can find more detailed
system requirements at..."

Secondly, I noticed a few technical terms that "average Windows users"
may struggle with, e.g. graphical interface, distribution, partition,
free partition, installation media.

It's looking good, though. In particular, I think the style is very
clean (good use of short sentences and informative initial sentences).

Thanks again,

Phil

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