At last week's FDSCo meeting, I blabbered along for a few minutes concerning where I wanted to go with the User Guide (and, subsequently, that I thought we should rename it). I've put together a mock table of contents and a few sample paragraphs of the sort of style I envisioned in the rewritten guide. I'd appreciate any comments on other ways to address the audience, better topics to choose, or anything else that you feel would make it better.
Please note that it's neither properly formatted nor spell/grammar-checked nor comprehensive in scope. I'm just looking for ideas before we get too far instead of after we've done half the guide.
Links: http://danielsmw.fedorapeople.org/Guide.pdf http://danielsmw.fedorapeople.org/Guide.odt
Also, because of the way this has been restyled, I think it could be easier for people to contribute; instead of delving into the full document and pulling out a scalpel to existing, messy content, people could just send me a paragraph or two on a particular question they care about or think is relevant.
Cheers! - - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- --------------------- Matthew Daniels Fedora Project + danielsmw@gmail.com Clemson University + mdaniel@clemson.edu Home Page / Blog + people.clemson.edu/~mdaniel + danielsmw.wordpress.com
On 07/20/2009 01:22 AM, Matthew Daniels wrote:
At last week's FDSCo meeting, I blabbered along for a few minutes concerning where I wanted to go with the User Guide (and, subsequently, that I thought we should rename it).
I've put together a mock table of contents and a few sample paragraphs of the sort of style I envisioned in the rewritten guide. I'd appreciate any comments on other ways to address the audience, better topics to choose, or anything else that you feel would make it better.
Please note that it's neither properly formatted nor spell/grammar-checked nor comprehensive in scope. I'm just looking for ideas before we get too far instead of after we've done half the guide.
Links: http://danielsmw.fedorapeople.org/Guide.pdf http://danielsmw.fedorapeople.org/Guide.odt
Also, because of the way this has been restyled, I think it could be easier for people to contribute; instead of delving into the full document and pulling out a scalpel to existing, messy content, people could just send me a paragraph or two on a particular question they care about or think is relevant.
Cheers!
Matthew Daniels Fedora Project
- danielsmw@gmail.com mailto:danielsmw@gmail.com
Clemson University
- mdaniel@clemson.edu mailto:mdaniel@clemson.edu
Home Page / Blog
- people.clemson.edu/~mdaniel http://people.clemson.edu/%7Emdaniel
- danielsmw.wordpress.com http://danielsmw.wordpress.com
"Linux is an open source operating system created by Linus Torvalds in the early 1990s. "
Maybe something about GNU and the FSF?
On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 11:22:45AM -0400, Matthew Daniels wrote:
At last week's FDSCo meeting, I blabbered along for a few minutes concerning where I wanted to go with the User Guide (and, subsequently, that I thought we should rename it).
Sorry I missed that. Just wanted to throw in the historical bit on naming around content for this target audience.
The term 'desktop' has a lot of different meanings. If I have a laptop, does this book apply to me? What if it's an OLPC XO running Fedora? Or a thin client at my school? It looks like a desktop because it has a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, but it may not even have a visible tower ...
The term 'user' is also ambiguous, but more inclusive.
So, while renaming is still under discussion, and in light of the tighter audience definitions made so far, is there a "better" or even a "best" term to throw in there?
Fedora User Guide Fedora Desktop Guide Fedora Computer User Guide Guide to Using Fedora How to Use Fedora Making Fedora Work for You
As techies, we get caught up in the "Product * Guide" naming scheme. What is different that isn't just stealing titles from existing books?
On the last note -- we should refer to some nice documentation that says how to use a mouse and such. That is, we need to fit above the level of total computer basics.
- Karsten