Ubuntu: A Beginners Guide

Tue Jan 5 02:02:18 UTC 2010

On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 01:13:02PM +1300, Benjamin Humphrey wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> 
> This would be about the tenth time I've had people complaining that
> it's an unnecessary project. There seem to be two sides, people who
> think it's great, people who think it's not. Strangely, Canonical
> employees and general Ubuntu well-doers are fairly mixed from my
> perspective - I ran the project past several people before I started
> it, including Jono Bacon, and all my responses were positive.

First off, I am not complaining. It was new to me and a shock at the same
time, as I hadn't heard of it prior to the article linked on lxer.com
stating it was official.

> The simple fact is that the documentation out there at the moment,
> while it's fantastic, it's not easy to access and blindingly obvious
> to a complete Ubuntu newcomer.

If this is in fact the case, wouldn't it make sense to work on creating an
easy way to access the already existing documentation? Instead of possibly
creating yet another document that may just as well be as difficult to
access? In GNOME I believe there is an icon at the top for help, as I know
there is one in the menu for KDE, so it can't be all that difficult to
locate.

> If you are an every day user and one of the reasons you are switching
> operating systems from Windows to Ubuntu because it is FREE, then
> would you go out and pay $35.99USD for a book on how to use it? Not to
> mention that for people who live outside the US, if you take in the
> currency conversion and shipping, it would cost a lot more than that -
> for myself, in New Zealand, it would cost nearly $100. Just to learn
> my new operating system - no thanks.

I was just trying to find out where to download the book, as it was
available for download before, but I cannot find it. However, every day
users who are switching, and you can read some of the stories in the forums
and in their blog posts, is because they are tired of $x being slow or
riddled with viruses and what not. Free as in free beer is just a benefit.

> I'm not going to sit here and type out all the justification again in
> every email, so instead I'd like to point you in the direction of the
> chapter on the main page of the wiki which is written for this very
> reason:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual#Justification

While I applaud your attempt at the justification, it still isn't
justifiable as an official project (yet?). In the subtopic of how it
differs from all other publications, you pretty much state what the Ubuntu
Documentation Project is. In the second subtopic concerning how it differs
from Ubuntu Docs, the first point is wrong, as Ubuntu Documentation is in 2
places, 1 is locally installed and the other is help.ubuntu.com. The other
3 points in that subtopic though I feel are genuine issues with our current
documentation, and feel that it is something that we need to address.

> Regarding the official status - I have not seen it referred to as
> official anywhere - what "places" are you talking about? We have not
> mentioned the word official anywhere on our wiki, Launchpad profile,
> mailing list or IRC chatroom.

http://lxer.com/ - it is the 3rd story at this time (20:00 CST). It links
to
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/01/official-ubuntu-beginners-manual-coming.html
which states the official part.

> However, I personally would like to see the final product endorsed by
> Canonical and included as sample content at least in Lucid. I've tried
> talking to several people about this, but you are understandably busy
> after the holiday period.

I apologize for not making myself a little more reachable on IRC or read
this mailing list more than I do. I spend most of my time as a Core
Developer for both the Ubuntu/Kubuntu project as well as the KDE project,
so 1,000 plus emails a day gets distracting :)

> Also - because something didn't work X number of years ago, what makes
> you think it's not worth a second shot? With the right amount of
> support and the attitude to succeed, then this could be a very
> successful project. So far we have had a lot of interest from people
> willing to contribute, and I am incredibly pleased with the progress
> being made.

Actually, I agree with you. A perfect example is the Full Circle magazine.
The marketing team attempted a magazine for 2 to 3 years unsuccessfully,
and now look, Full Circle rocks!

> We need support from people like you to prevent it from becoming just
> another failed project.

I have no problem supporting a project, I just fear at this time, it will
end up being just another justification for the next project maybe, instead
of contributing to a current project that is trying to fix similar, if not
the same, issues as this project is. An example is in the book market,
which I will agree, the Ubuntu books I have seen are reasonably over
priced. I can go in to my Barnes & Noble or any other book store, even the
library (which has all of the books for free by the way), and there will be
anywhere from 5 to 10 different books on Ubuntu. All of the books are well
written and pretty much provide the same information, so it makes it tough
for a user to decide which one is right for them. Eventually the same is
going to happen with documentation, if it isn't happening already.

As a long time contributor to open source projects, I was just worried
about a reinvention of the documentation wheel, which has yet to prove
successful for anyone as of yet. We want all of our documentation easily
accessible, and in one location would be best, whether it was via Yelp
(GNOME) or KHelpCenter (KDE) or even help.ubuntu.com, however creating yet
another document that attempts to fix this issue, kind of worries me at
best.

-- 
 Name|  Richard JOHNSON
Title|  Developer
  WWW|  http://www.ubuntu.com
Email|  nixternal at ubuntu.com
GnuPG|  3578 0981 A21D D662 2A96  7623 F4C1 838C D8C4 4738
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