CHANGELOG: Ubuntu Community Documentation - Main Page

Manjul Apratim manjul.apratim at gmail.com
Thu Aug 4 04:35:58 UTC 2011


In response to ideas brought up by Chris (clissold345), I rewrote the
section on the terminal on the main page of the community documentation. His
main arguments were: if Mac or Windows users switch to ubuntu the vast
majority of them will only use the command line when they have to, while
Linux users will almost certainly already be familiar with the command line,
and they hardly need to be warned about it. I concede that it would indeed
be best, to tell new users that GNU/Linux is not the scary beast it used to
be, and one may not spend their lives on the command line, but that most
everyday tasks may be performed using alternate GUI tools, and that despite
that, the terminal is a powerful tool which enhances the user's power over
his system.

I acknowledge that the language I have employed is obviously not the
"documentation type" - instead, it aims to be more like a dialogue with the
new user, trying to walk them through this new idea, as I envisage the
entire wiki to become. I have left the comparison of the knowledge of
terminal commands with spells in sorcery, for I think it really drives the
point home, and I have made a remark regarding how Ubuntu has served to
change the image GNU/Linux used to have, thanks to Mark (albeit in a
somewhat cheesy fashion). I have also refrained (with due apologies to RMS)
from the excessive use of the term "GNU/Linux" - since I believe that is not
how the common newbie recognizes us. However, I have thrown in that term in
the mix, so that the new user may also start picking it up.

Please do read that section and provide your feedback - I would be more than
happy to listen/debate on it and other parts of the wiki, and change/have
them changed accordingly.

-- 
Manjul Apratim
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