Re: [LUG] Newcomers 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.

This is irritating, and as far as I can tell it turns Num Lock off at least four times during the time between pressing the power button and playing the login sound.

I could not see any files in the root folder so, with help from the
group, I sorted that out.

That's KDE's fault, I think. It doesn't affect ordinary Ubuntu, in any case.

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 is fine providing your router and ISP are not crap - I had problems only while with AOL.

I had to add extra repositories before I could see a complete list of
available files.

This is because the extra repositories contain unsupported and proprietary software.

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.

KDE again, I suspect.

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.

Synaptic will expand the terminal automatically in the event of user input being needed by debconf. Perhaps this is a hideously obvious bug in Adept and should be reported?

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.

Things don't work until you install them, well observed. Or have I misunderstood?

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.

Ubuntu's policy is to not clutter the desktop. Admittedly, it's rather obvious where to look for things that would be on the desktop in Windows in regular Ubuntu (one clicks "places"), so again this could be considered a bug in KDE.

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.

KDE again... dear me, it's really bad this release.

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.

No idea about that one, but I am not sure why ALSA would be disabled by default.

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?

Yes: make sure he avoids KDE.