On Friday 09 March 2001 10:22, Jethro Cramp wrote:
To make this work SuSE needs to take the initiative and write some guidelines for newbies to follow and publish this in a prominent position on their website, in the installed docs and in their manuals. I think that this would have a very positive effect on the useability and accessibility (excuse the marketing speak) of the SuSE distribution.
What does everybody else think?
Regards,
Jethro Jethro,
Ahm, perhaps SuSE could produce a book that gives a system level and component level description of their product. This book might also describe the basics of working with gcc, configure, make, etc. It should probably also have a basic description of how the kernel works, and how modules work in conjunction with the kernel. Perhaps a bit of discussion of how hardware dirvers work, and how they are written would be useful as well. Sample code for 'toy' implementation in these various areas would also be of interest. Of course there should be a section describing how to work with RPMs in the SuSE environment in such a way as to produce compatable RPM packages. In order to fill the gap between now and the time such a book might be completed, it could be released in sections to the portal. This would give the advantage of aquiering feedback as the product matures. I migh even suggest a title for the book _Juggling Knives_ *Hacking SuSE, without Hacking Yourself* or something like that. You are correct about Mandrake being very community oriented. I'm sure there are downsided to this as well, and I would like to hear what others think these might be. To my mind SuSE would do well to present themselves as the orchestrators of the combined contributions of their user community. As it is, they seem kind of reclusive and aloof. Perhaps they could cast themselves as something of a Linux on-line university. The company is run by a bunch of Mathematicians if I'm not mistaken. You'd think these guys would have learned the most important lesson taught in graduate school. 'Let others do the hard work, and then you put your name on it.' {;-)> I believe a conservative Mandrake-like approach would be good for SuSE. Steve