On Sunday 29 April 2001 02:24, you wrote:
Hi everyone, Yes, I've advocated a 1 cd version of SuSE before, but this idea is different. Infact, this idea is for a version of SuSE _I_wouldn't_want_. Intrigued?
Yes! This is something that I would *very much* like to possess: A tool to help free people from Winworld, and in the process free myself from having to deal with M$tuff when people's window breaks...
- A few things SuSE could develop: A special multimedia tutorial for newbies, a Windows TrueType font importer (that automatically mounts the Windows drive, finds c:\windows or c:\winnt, copies those fonts, and then makes fonts.dir and fonts.scale), and finally information on SuSE Personal and Profession for the newbie to upgrade to when they are ready.
To get this going, I would imagine that a capability to import mail/adressbooks from a windows system would help... (in the vein of the above: find windows-partition, locate mail/adr-book, import) not as simple as it sounds, I know, but still... Also dual-boot should be *simple* to set up. (unless, of course, what we want is for people to abandon M$ completely ?) Which leads to: some kind of partition management would be needed...
- Elimite the X11 setup step. Unless the hardware can not be autodetected, this page shouldn't show up in SuSEdesk.
Right!
- Elimate all of the Misc. hardware setup page, except bringing up a page to enter the phone number of an ISP. This page could have a button that said "Advanced: Setup DSL or Cable Modem Service." Other thing such as file and printer sharing could be taken care by creating a simple little "Home Networking Setup Tool", that would attempt to make samba setup as easy as smb networking setup is in Windows ME.
Definitely: make the whole network (modem/DSL/Samba) -stuffs department as easy as possible. Firewalling/NAT is a must, though. And setting that up ought to be simple, so that people will use it! Preferrably some graphic utility that makes for an easy initial setup, but later allows for a more finegrained control of stuff...
3.) KISL. Keep it simple looking...
more good ideas
Also in the Look Dept., I would cover up the boot messages at startup with a picture of Tux or Geeko and the name "SuSEdesk" plastered on there. In smaller print, there could be the words SuSE Linux is Starting up..." and a percentage bar so the newbie knows it is actually working while this screen is shown.
You're probably right about this, although I remember from booting my first Linux-install, watching in fascination (and a little disbelief) the machine actually *telling* me *exactly* what was going on during the boot! ;-D While I agree that a lot of people probably don't give a sh*t about all that, I still believe that showing system-messages at bootup is a good thing: 1: It conveys a sense of "real" computing. 2: It helps "debugging" 3: This is open-source: Showing people boot messages, helps convey the sense that your computer doesn't hide anything from you...(?) So I would suggest: a: Put the boot messages in a window (about 1/6 of the screensize, in the lower right-hand corner) on the startup-splash-screen b: Make "Show boot-messages" optional
4.) Finally, KICS. Keep it cheap stupid. I think I'd price this software between $25-$35. The price would be close to that of Personal Edition, but even though it would lack some of the Personal Edition stuff, I think it would do well - because it was simple.
Yes, and:
Perhaps a wise idea, if SuSE ever offered something like this, is to make an easy migration path to SuSE Personal or Professional editions
My .02$ Jon Clausen