Fedora User Guide
by Andy Hudson
Karsten Wade wrote:
> Any questions or thoughts to start?
>
> - Karsten
>
Thanks for the welcome!
My initial thoughts on the documentation is that it is perfect for
established users, i.e., those who have installed a Linux distro
previously. However, if I were to put my wife in front of two computers,
one with the docs on screen and one with Fedora on screen - she would
not really have a clue where to begin.
Looking at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas I quite
like the look of the Fedora User Guide - this could be a crucial
document to help new users ease their way into Fedora & Linux in
general. I would see it as being written in a conversational style
rather than a straight 'here are the facts in a particular order'.
Depending on how in-depth we are looking it could also include some
task-based exercises to get users familiar with the software. What are
other people's thoughts?
If we are to succeed in promoting Fedora, then some of the barriers to
entry have to be removed - the Fedora User Guide would be a powerful
sledgehammer to pound down the walls of FUD.
Thanks,
Andy
18 years, 7 months
Re: Who's the Fedora user?
by Paul W. Frields
On Wed, 2005-08-24 at 18:50 +0100, Andrew Hudson wrote:
> Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
> > This is one potential user of Fedora: Judy, from Arizona. She sent in a
> > letter to the editor of Red Hat Magazine that makes me weep inside.
> >
> > What do we have to say to her?
> >
> > --g
>
> >
> > Dear Red Hat, I hope you will get this e-mail. I am a single user
> > computer person. I put yes down - so I could receive your e-mails.
> > To tell you the truth I do not know why. Your main emphasis seems to
> > be on business. I switched from Windows because I thought it would
> > be safer and healthier all the way round. To tell you the truth I
> > feel totally lost in your system. I cannot use my CDs that have
> > games. I downloaded a game I had paid for. No way could I get it to
> > work. I wrote to Linux Game. Their directions were like Greek, and
> > I only speak English. I tried to download the anti-virus I use.
> > They have a version for Linux. No way did I get that. I looked
> > into your training, but that is extremely costly. I have bought
> > books. It all come s down to the fact There is little I am able to
> > do with Linux. Mostly I would like to have a plug-in that works, as
> > to the fact there are many things I am unable to open, including some
> > mail, because I can find no way to do it. Dear Red Hat - what are
> > you doing for us little people out here? I am no further today than
> > I was the day this was installed. Thank you, Judy D.
> >
>
> Greg,
>
> I feel your pain on this one - here is someone who has heard all of the
> good things about Linux and Fedora but cannot translate what she has
> heard into a useable system for her.
>
> As Jeff mentioned, he feels that he is in the 1% tail of geekdom which
> will never be able to translate the tech speak into everyday terms.
>
> Why don't we take this opportunity to ask Judy/Sue/whoever about the
> barriers that she actually came up against - did she go to Google and be
> over-run with the many countless options available?
>
> One of the things people enjoy is belonging - if we could convince
> Judy/Sue and perhaps a couple of other total newbies to 'reality check'
> documentation such as the installation guide then that would be worth a
> fortune to Fedora and the FDP. Emphasise that this is important to us -
> it's obviously important to Judy/Sue to succeed in Linux!
I posted to f-docs-l with some suggestion about how to leverage this
into the Mentoring program but I guess the reply has gone out already...
I may contact her directly with an offer of help. Although that doesn't
solve the problem, it gets us in touch with someone who can help us
(Docs team) understand what people want first, second, etc.
> I'm going to suggest a moving to Fedora from Windows FAQ for absolute
> newbies, but I'm going to do this on the docs-list.
This is not a bad idea, and I think this should be more than just a list
of program equivalencies. It would involve explaining what people see,
from boot to use case, that differs, and gives them the information they
need to understand the critical differences. (Note that this is not the
same as, "explain everything about what they see and why it's different.
Normal users don't care, they just want to know where to click to make
things work.)
18 years, 7 months
Self-Introduction: Andrew Hudson
by Andy Hudson
1. Andrew (Andy) Hudson
* City, Country:
Trowbridge, UK
* Profession or Student Status
CRM Development Manager
* Company or School
Future Publishing
* Your goals in the Fedora Project
* What do you want to write about
Productivity Applications, ie OO.o, Evolution, Firefox, Thunderbird
etc. Things from a new user perspective.
* What other documentation do you want to see published?
Demystifing Fedora Core, Beginner guides to 'blah'
* Do you want to edit for grammar/writing and/or technical accuracy?
Either or, really.
* Anything else special
Burning desire to move Fedora Core forward in usability terms
* Historical Qualifications
* What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past?
I regularly write for Linux Format magazine in the UK,
specialising on RH/Fedora based distros. I am also the co-author for
Fedora Core 4 Unleashed by Sams Publishing and will be co-writing
Fedora Core 5 Unleashed.
* What level and type of computer skills do you have?
I am an advanced user, although I do shy away from formal
programming. My strengths lie in the 'user' arena, helping others to
move towards Open Source applications. Particular experience in
Samba and also in yum.
* What other skills do you have that might be applicable?
I am a good people person, having had a background in technical
sales. Also able to describe complex concepts in ways that end users
(particularly newbies) can understand easily.
* What makes you an excellent match for the project?
An intense desire to see Fedora Core as the number one community
distro. My background in writing a large book on Fedora Core
* GPG KEYID and fingerprint
pub 1024D/F98DB760 2005-08-24 [expires: 2006-08-24]
Key fingerprint = A1FD A68E BEC9 4712 0474 3D68 C709 84D7 F98D B760
uid Andrew Hudson (Andrew Hudson) <webmanagement(a)gmail.com>
sub 2048g/9F226B42 2005-08-24 [expires: 2006-08-24]
18 years, 7 months
[Fwd: Re: Docs packaging]
by Stuart Ellis
On Wed, 2005-08-24 at 04:43 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Hi
>
> >>Can we ship the XML (perhaps as well) and have the documentation
> >>readable in Yelp? It would be great to have the installed Fedora
docs
> >>appear when clicking on the desktop's "Help" menu item.
> >>
> >>
> How about KDE users. I wouldnt be pleased if I was one and wanted to
> install documentation and end up installing yelp etc as dependencies
From what I can get from Google, KHelpCenter also reads ScrollKeeper
files (the metadata files that Yelp uses to identify DocBook documents
for it's index), although that is not it's native format.
--
Stuart Ellis
stuart(a)elsn.org
Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/
GPG key ID: 7098ABEA
GPG key fingerprint: 68B0 E291 FB19 C845 E60E 9569 292E E365 7098 ABEA
18 years, 7 months
Minutes FDSCo meeting 23 August 2005
by Karsten Wade
Topics that will come from this meeting to the list for discussion:
* How to best utilize the Wiki?
* Schedule for FC5
* CVS organization for translations
##################################################
FDSCo Meeting
23 August 2005
#fedora-docs, irc.freenode.net
Attending:
==========
Tommy Reynolds
Tammy Fox
Paul Frields
Gavin Henry
Stuart Ellis
Karsten Wade
Regrets:
========
Mark Johnson
Guests:
=======
Rahul Sundaram
Updates:
========
* Working on getting a docs-needed field/switch in bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla-devel/show_bug.cgi?id=166310
* Wiki
- need to embrace
- ACL control of wiki/Docs/ to DocWriters, some pages to DocEditors
- every page that is documentation has a clear owner, and some ACLs
when it's promoted
- promoted will eventually mean the canonical is in XML in CVS, with
the Wiki pulling from there
- all non-finished pages are part of Docs Rawhide
* First proposed schedule
2 November - test1 documentation freeze
7 November - test1 release
7 December - test2 documentation freeze
12 December - test2 release
4 January - test3 documentation freeze
9 January - test3 release
1 February - FC5 documentation freeze (final)
13 February - FC5 release
* Second proposed schedule to include trans freezes
* Working on Docs Rawhide
- autobuild from CVS
- all Wiki content that is not promoted
* Working on a special keyword for developers to use in commit logs
that will tag the log content as wanting docs attention, usually for
release notes.
Actions:
========
Karsten - make [docme] the keyword, work with Sopwith on how soon to
start
Karsten - get a new ACL group DocEditors for special doc-locked pages,
start with FedoraMyths and ForbiddenItems
All - offer help to Elliot for infrastucture testing, tech help, etc.
Karsten - take trans CVS organization to f-docs-l
Karsten - update docs/trans schedule to include trans freeze,
recognize packagin
Tommy - multi-lingual Makefile
## 30 ##
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41
Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/
18 years, 7 months
how to install Oracle 9i on Fedora Core 3 or greater.
by gaurav
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Hi ,
Pl find Oracle 9i on Fedora Core 3 or greater How to at Linux
Documentation project
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Oracle-9i-Fedora-3-Install-HOWTO/
<http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Oracle-9i-Fedora-3-Install-HOWTO/>
I hope people might find it useful as its general perception that
Oracle runs only certified RH products like RHEL,RAS etc
initially i had submitted this article on Redhat doc list but I really
got tired with my bad experience with RH bureaucratic process and
double standards (stuff like fedora is not supposed to Run in
enterprise and setup , use RHEL , we don t document proprietary stuff
for fedora but its ok for RHEL Blah blah) .
Over all i find people at Linux Documentation project much friendlier
and open and easier to work with and also much larger scope
I guess its better to submit documentation directly to Linux
Documentation Project and be as vendor neutral specific as possible
Regards ,
Gaurav
- --
"Innovation is not absolutely necessary, but then neither is survival."
- -- Andrew Papageorge
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18 years, 7 months
proposal: Setting up a samba server on Fedora Core 4
by Peter Boy
Hi,
attached a rough draft for a step-by-step guide to set up a samba
server. It is based on some internal documentation that I wrote for my
staff.
Current status:
part 1 - 5 are nearly ready (in German) but needs some polishing/
clarification before disseminating and, of course, I have to do a
translation.
Peter
18 years, 7 months
Self-Introduction: Peter Boy
by Peter Boy
Following the format of the Fedora Documentation Project self-intro at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction
1. Full legal name
Peter Boy
* City, Country;
Bremen, Germany
* Profession or Student status
senior scientist, research fellow (social science research
methods and statistical computing)
managing director of the research institut IT infrastructure
* Company or School
University of Bremen, Germany
* Your goals in the Fedora Project
* What do you want to write about?
- planning guides, integration of heterogeneous
systems;
- Administration / tutorials about Samba, LDAP,
databases (esp. Postgres, MySQL, UDB), Apache, Tomcat,
Sendmail, Postfix;
- Installing / using Java;
* What other documentation do you want to see published?
Nothing specifically. Would like to see a comprehensive
and well structured Fedora documentation in order to
help it to usable for a large community.
* Do you want to edit for grammar/writing and/or technical
accuracy?
I'm not a native English speaker, but could comment on
overall structure and technical accuracy of a document.
* Anything else special?
- Can do translation (to German)
- As a scientist I have some experience in planning and
writing technically oriented articles and books, which
might be helpful here sometimes
* Historical qualifications
* What other projects or writing have you worked on in the
past?
- Wrote several articles about installing, maintaining
and using linux systems and programs (non-linux, too)
- Contributed to IBM Redbook (ITSO, Austin) (was about
OS/2)
- teaching students (using linux for different
scientific reseach tasks)
- maintained some rpms for Linux based Sun systems
* What level and type of computer skills do you have?
Experienced administrator and application program
developer (mainly database related applications,
client/server applications and web services)
- being in business with various computer systems
since 1970
- knowledge about AIX, OS/2, various linux
distributions
- programming skills in various languages, esp. C/C++,
Java
- Web site development (design, HTML/csss/php/Java,
etc).
* What other skills do you have that might be applicable?
User interface design, other so-called soft skills
(people skills), programming, etc.
- Organisation of team work
- overall planing and development of conceptions for
publications about specific topics
* What makes you an excellent match for the project?
I do a lot of writing on my job about Linux and generell
IT topics which might be useful for FDP, too (hopefully)
* GPG KEYID and fingerprint
pub 1024D/59786EEA 2005-08-20 Peter Boy (Fedora Docs Project)
<pboy(a)barkhof.uni-bremen.de>
sub 1024g/C695D937 2005-08-20 [verfällt: 2010-08-19]
18 years, 7 months