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Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 20:43:53 +0100 From: Keith Watson keith@watson To: alug main@lists.alug.org.uk Cc: Syd Hancock syd@toufol.com, IanBell ian@redtommo.com, Graham Trott gt@pobox.com Subject: Re: [ALUG] Coming down to earth

At 07:09 on Tue, 6 Jul 2004, Bryce Martin wrote:

Hello, I would like to extend the discussion about weekend trials or expositions of various equipment or software. I consider myself to be an ordinary modern linux user that struggles with the most basic problems of everyday useage. I don't want to list the most common difficulties that face the 'ordinary (none technical) user' because I don't know what they might be, but plugins for the very popular browsers konqueror and mozilla 1.7 could possibly be dealt with via the alug mailing list. I don't just mean refering users to a web site, which could be a good thing, but actually creating emails that show 'step by step' how to install a certain plugin or other task. Our top exponents of linux might enjoy writing these postings. Documentation relating to linux across the board is poor, in my opinion. Could we as a user group make a difference to this problem of documentation by helping with a (very loosely) structured education program that is conducted via the alug mailing list? The mailing list serves the really knowledgable linux users quite well in a conversational way, but now that linux is so much more mainstream, it would be nice to punctuate these savvy conversations with (possibly) regular(ish) instruction on the basics of linux. We could focus on the most basic configuration tasks via our mailing list to help NEW users of linux, and still enjoy the very stimulating discussions of experienced users. I would enjoy reading the unsolicited configurational instruction of an experienced user that was posted to the list on more BASIC topics. It could become normal practice. It can't hurt, but would take a little effort admittedly. Kind regards, Bryce.

A bit late but Snap! I've been thinking along similar lines for a while now.

I must say that with Linux I find that it's not the lack of info. that's a problem but the excess of info. To start with most pieces of software installed usually have a whole chunk of documentation (admittedly it can be patchy, but, IME, it's usually reasonably complete) and then there's the Linux Documentation Project that has tons of stuff and then there's loads of mailing lists like this that can be searched with Google.

Often what's needed when you're just getting into something is quick concise answers to some of the basic problems i.e. how do I do a basic install/configure of this? or I installed that and now this is broke how do I fix it? (and some help in finding your way around the terminology)

In mailing lists like this it's not always easy to indicate what you have under your belt already so that those who reply can pitch the answer at the right level. Perhaps a better way is for us to help ourselves by using the wiki pages and instead of HOWTOs adding our own HOWIDIDITS?

What I was thinking is that whenever one of us, whatever our level of experience with GNU/Linux, tackles and resolves a problem, e.g installing a bit of hardware or configuring/upgrading a piece of software, we could add a wiki page with a short write up and appropriate links to other sources of info. we used.

Not as formal or structured as a HOWTO perhaps just a simple log of steps taken and what happened, but I'm sure that over time it would contain useful hits and tips.

I believe the wiki already has an area for this so what we need to do is get list members to use it.

In this way everyone can usefully contribute.

Regards, Keith -------------- See into life. Don't just look at it. - Anne Baxter

Regards, Keith -------------- The saddest thing in the world is a person with sight but no vision. - Helen Keller