Re: Experience the New Windows

[Atul Chitnis <achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Indraneel Majumdar wrote:

> Is it because Linux has too many applications and the user doesn't know
> what is loaded and what's not, or even what works and what doesn't? Maybe
> we need a application chooser with a brief note, pros and cons of each
> application in some format (another application?) for the user to choose
> from?

Possibly. That would actually be part of the solution towards making Linux
more "palatable" to the new or casual user.

This actually leads to another peeve I have - most documentation that
comes with today's Linux distros is again too technical (it sure scared
the hell out of my mom, who *can* install Windows, BTW), and too low on
the application documentation front.

Good distro docs would quickly get a user past the installation process
(which, to be honest, is a no-brainer these days) and then concentrate on
getting a user thoroughly acquainted with the *applications* instead of
*Linux*. Remember, most people buy a PC to *use* it, *not* to install
Linux (Raj Mathur excluded, of course ;-).

In fact, it would probably be a good idea to start diverting attention
away from the underlying Operating System, and focus more on the apps.

A typical user of a home desktop machine has a very specific initial
feature set that s/he needs. We all know what they are - Internet access
(connect, web browsing, email, instant messaging), Productivity
(word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations), Games (yeah!), etc.

What would probably make a lot of sense is to re-engineer a current distro
that, after the initial installation (and first login by a user) launches
a wizard of sorts that

- gets necessary Internet info from the user (email address, instant
  messager of choice, etc.)

- introduces and configures things like wordprocessors, graphics tools,
  etc (giving the user the choice to add these to their menus, if they
  were installed in first place) etc.

- gives the user a tour of the system and how things work.

This is probably very simplistic, but I think it is enough to illustrate
what I am talking about.

Atul

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Atul Chitnis       | achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx (PGP:6011BCB8)
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