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On Friday 05 January 2007 13:20, Neil Winchurst wrote: > Recently there have been comments about getting more people across to > Linux. I think that is a great idea. However some help and hand-holding > will be needed I suggest. > > Late October I installed kubuntu Edgy. I am not new to Linux at all, > but I needed to make quite a few changes to get it to work for me. > Here are some first thoughts about it. > > ********************************************* > > Setting up Kubuntu Edgy. > > There has been some chat recently about getting Windows users to > migrate to Linux with particular reference to Kubuntu. I have used > Linux for years I installed Edgy the day that it came out and I have > been pleased so far. It might be interesting to look at the changes and > tweaks that I have made so far. My point is that as it installed, out of > the box so to speak, it was not yet ready for me. It worked, of course, > but I had to do quite a bit of customisation before I was happy with > it. What will people new to Linux think I wonder. > > *** Please note that these are not criticisms, merely some thoughts and > comments re possible problems for people new to Linux *** > > > First of all I made the Num Lock turn on at log on. The default to have > it off seems odd to me. Not something I use myself, in fact, I have to turn it off on an old laptop I have here with distros which turn it on by default - the laptop uses the numlock to enable the function keys if I recall correctly. > > I could not see any files in the root folder so, with help from the > group, I sorted that out. > Yep, the new Edgy does have that "feature". I, along with many others have commented about that to the (K)Ubuntu devs. Personally, I cannot see the point of hiding root files - if you are confident enough to edit or delete files in those folders as root or using sudo, then you should be aware of the risks. And of course, those who are confident enough to edit the files will work out how to bypass the hiding feature anyway. Pointless and confusing for all in my view. I guess the developers thought it was worth a test to see if the feature would be useful - I think it will be dropped in future releases myself. > I had some problems with my browsers (Firefox and Galeon) Again with > help I traced this to having IPv6 enabled. With help from the group I > disabled it and all is now well. New users could find this rather > obscure and difficult to sort out. > IPv6 issues abound in many distros, not just the Ubuntu family. My view is that the browser developers should deal with the problems or drop it for now. > I had to add extra repositories before I could see a complete list of > available files. > Guess that is purely to appease the "free software only" fans. Like Debian from which it is derived, Ubuntu makes the user actively choose if they wish to use non-free software. Whilst it does make life a little awkward for the newer user, I can live with it if needs be. > I had a floppy drive in my new computer (I know, but it was there) and > it took a while and quite a lot of help from the group to get it > working. > I have a floppy drive, but never used it in Kubuntu - or any other distro for years. They were a pain in the old days, so I guess things have not improved a lot since then! > Adding new files using Adept seemed fine, but I had to learn to deal > with packages that needed me to answer some questions along the way. At > first I thought it had died on me. > Agreed. Anything which requires confirmation before continuing is a pain in Adept. Perhaps Ubuntu need to look at that - it does cause issues as we have seen here before. > My printer was found OK, but I couldn't get any utilities to work with > it (eg checking ink quantity) at first. Eventually I installed escputil > and all is now well. > I suppose the issue there is that each printer has its own set of utilities - e.g the Epson escputils - which are of little use to owners of other printers. Having said that, I don't think they take up a lot of room and could perhaps be squeezed onto the CD/install in place of something else maybe. > There were no icons on the desktop at all. OK, some people like to work > that way. I suggest that those new to Linux will want and expect to > find some icons already there. I have added a few for myself (26 in > fact). They were fairly easy to set up except for Home. I had to be > pointed in the right place for that one. > Yep, it does seem odd when you move to Ubuntu at first. I love icons myself, yet my wife hates them - so the clean desktop suits her, but like you, I have added my own icons to my desktop. A clean desktop, but with at least the home directory on it would make a little more sense I think. > I like using a terminal screen. I had to add the necessary icon in > Konqueror so that I can call it up from any folder. And yes, I do often > use alt-F2. > As above - I also added the Konsole screen to my desktop ;) I use the command line a lot so I always have it available. > I couldn't get any sounds at first. Luckily I knew about Kmix. I found > that everything was switched off. Seems strange. Anyway, I got it > sorted out but a newcomer to Linux is going to be baffled I suggest. > I would class that as a generic Linux issue. Happens in all distros at times, depending on soundcard, distro, drivers, time of day.... Sound in Linux is something I have had some real battles with at times, yet other times it just works perfectly! The "muted by default" action is often seen - goodness knows why! Fair enough, I would expect to have to put some effort in to get my dictaphone tapes transferred to my system and converted to mp3 (and I did!), but to simply get the sound to work on pretty generic hardware should not be an issue. > ********************************************************** > > As I said just some first thoughts. I have a friend who is showing some > interest. He will need quite a lot of help and hand-holding I think. > > Any comments anyone? > > Neil Winchurst I could add some other generic comments - dhcp enabled by default on all distros - I don't use dhcp, so I fail to get an internet connection on install, which means that apt, for example, fails and I have to go through the sources.list and re-enable all the channels which it has hashed out for me. Annoying, but I am so used to it now that I rarely think about it. Happens in all distros though. multimedia keyboards- Not really the fault of Linux - more down to the manufacturers - but these "extra" keys generally fail dismally. OK, they can be sorted out - I have written a guide on setting them up in the past - but it is frustrating for someone moving over from a Windows environment. Some are now beginning to be covered in various distros, but still a pain for many. complex instructions- For new users, man pages etc are simply useless. Not just man pages though - many instructions in help pages etc also suffer from this. Even experienced users can be baffled by some of the information out there, so how is the new user is expected to follow it? As users, we can all help - by passing on comments to the right people (e.g developers), writing guides in plain English, testing and reporting, bug fixing etc etc. The comments from a new user are often far more useful to the developer of a gui for instance, than those from a more experienced user. The new user does not have the previous experience so is more likely to spot lack of intuitiveness for example. Just a few comments :) Mark -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html