Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1983 mails)

[dlaude@xxxxxxxxxx (Dana J. Laude)]

Joe Ryan wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I'm a newbie to Linux but not to computers.  I started with a 8088 in
> 1987.  I have purchased three boxes from various manufacturers and I
> built the last two, Pentium II's, 333 and 400 MgH.
> 
> After years with DOS and Windoz I saw a box with Red Hat and decided to
> learn Linux.  Didn't get far with Red Hat before I noticed an
> advertisement for SUSE.  Purchased 5.3 and Applix Office Solutions.
> 
> I am a retired Airline Transport Pilot (40 years), and have attended
> many schools for different types of aircraft over the years.  I know
> quite a bit about the learning process and how to convey knowledge from
> one person to another.  If the aircraft operating manuals were as arcane
> as the Linux literature, there would be piles of Aluminum intersped with
> body parts and various colors of fluids at the end of each runway in the
> world.
> 
> >From reading your posts for the last month I gather I have joined a long
> line of people who have found that the most difficult thing I have ever
> tried to learn is how to configure PPP.
> 
> I have purchased and read the Linux Unleashed, Linux in 24 hours, The No
> BS Guide to Linux and the Doctor Linux along with SuSe Linux 5.3
> manual.  In addition, I have downloaded and printed the HOWTO's, Man
> Pages and Doc's.
> 
> I'm not asking for help, the challenge of figuring this thing out is
> enough for me to keep going.
> 
> What I'm suggesting to SuSe is;  Hire a teacher to write your manuals!
> Get someone who has experience in behavior modification, who can start
> at the beginning and offer an explanation to someone who is completely
> unknowledgeable about Linux.
> 
> Your manual expects the user to have prior knowledge and that is an
> assumption on your part.  In addition, please try to keep the manual
> current with the software demonstration.
> 
> And finally, please take those red screens that do not allow the user to
> make changes when they have mistakenly entered incorrect information and
> throw them away.  Particularly the ones in YaST: i.e., Hostname and
> Domain Name.

Sorry for the long quote, but this was a necessity. Joe, you
are absolutely
correct, and although Linux diehards might disagree..., we
do need a out
of the box (dumb proofed) install, with auto detection of
various hardware
setups.  Next to PPP, X-Windows would be next, offering a
solution for other
painless install of KDE, (which SuSE does quite well as of
5.3) and other
frontends for X.  One of the cool things with Linux is that
you have a choice what GUI you want, and if you're not sure,
then try 'em all. ;) 

As far as network setup goes, this can be a touchy area.
Under Win9x
it normally detects the card, irq and io address.  What alot
of people
forget is that PnP is sometimes bad, and that if you've had
NO DOS
experience, (insert OS/2, Novell, Win 3.x) you might have no
idea
that you can run the dos setup pgm off the included floppy
disk
and setup the default IRQ, IO assignments.  (note: good
reason
to have a DOS partition available)  There are other areas of
improvement on the installation of Linux, but it's gone a
LONG
way as apposed to even 2 years ago!  

Dana

--
dlaude@xxxxxxxxxx	Dana J. Laude, Fluid Computer Designs Ltd
(US)
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