Newbie and using Ubuntu

[Alexander Antoniades]

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 18:42:31 +0200, Oliver Grawert
<hostmaster at grawert.net> wrote:
> Am Sonntag, den 03.10.2004, 12:19 -0400 schrieb Alexander Antoniades:
> > 1) Please include joe or another easy to use text editor in the
> there already is gedit (which works fine from the commandline) it's up
> to the supporting person to give the hint in the non vi direction
> (which is hard if you are used to vi).

If the Gnome is definitely running I would recommend using gedit, but
after Colin's suggestion of nano would be my choice for offering
generic instructions, if gnome could be potentially not running.
 
> > 2) There is a Root terminal window, if you're going to tell people to
> > basically issue root commands then just have them use that instead of
> > just saying 'sudo xxx' since you're assuming they already have a
> > terminal open, which in many cases may not be true.
> admitting that sudo can get nerving, you can damage a lot more in a root
> terminal by accident. the right thing IMHO is to advise to open a
> terminal before telling use sudo.

I meant more in terms of making the instruction as explicit as
possible, that simply  answering FAQ questions like  Sudo xxxx isn't
helpful to people who are used to using a GUI. They probably don't
have a terminal open and they could conceivably try to execute the
command using in some GUI front end that won't work.

The instructions should start something like "in a terminal window
type" or "Go to applications and under system tools choose terminal
window", and avoid generic instructions like "use emacs or your
favorite editor". So in an example where someone had to enter a root
command for some system configuration I would specify them to use a
root terminal, enter the command and include "close the window or type
exit" at the end of the instructions.

People who are adept enough to understand what you are doing will
adapt, but others will be able to follow too. While it's hard to avoid
the inevitable "I can't find the any key", from my experience, the
simpler and more specific you make, the better chance someone can
solve their own problem.

Sander