The Joy Of Tux

[Havin_it]

Hi,

 

Got mildly bored this afternoon and bought a new domain: thejoyoftux.net. For some reason I thought this would be long gone, but only the .net.cn variant was taken (and not answering pings at last check).

 

I'm thinking about - as a hobby thing ATM - using it for a bit of Linux advocacy and fandom, aimed primarily at budding switchers and n00bs. It has scarce disk and bandwidth, so will be mostly a link-reservoir unless/until anything big happens with it.

 

I would like to put out a request for ideas on what to put on the site. The process will be likely very slow as I work two jobs, but in the long-term I hope to have a ubiquitous resource for both switchers and those looking to sell the switch to others. Because we need more of that, I think.

 

Contact me by posting here or email to robin ~AAAAAAAATTTTTTT~ thejoyoftux

%D000000000000000T% net.

 

Cheers,

Havin_it

 

[moved from Talk-Talk by spinynorman]

[devries]

If you spend money when you get bored no wonder you need 2 jobs :)

 

Anyway, what new Mandriva users need most is knowledge about urpmi. Put everything you know about urpmi on that site and you'll be doing the world a favour.

[Havin_it]

Ah, what's £24 for two years? I can spend more than that on a night in the pub. (That's why I need 2 jobs!)

 

A rundown of all the installer systems would be a good thing to have. Ideally as well as the distro builtins, it could look at emerging non-distro-specific tools like Autopackage. Anyone using that yet?

 

And of course the obligatory guide to source building. If I could make a non-scary one of those for the beginner, I'd call that an achievement. Recenltly my GF asked me why it took so long to install one bit of software [on Gentoo] so I treated her to my best dumbed-down description of the compiling process - she ran out of the room in under a minute!

Edited September 7, 2005 by Havin_it

[Aomighty]

I'd suggest a listing of some distros and their capabilities with some suggestions as to advantages of each. Probably for new people it would be Mandrake, SuSe, and FC4. I've wanted to make something like this for a while, "A Beginner's Guide to Open Source."

[Havin_it]

That's a good call - only sad that my own current distro would inevitably be left out of that list <snff>. Then again, I'd say Gentoo can be as easy as some others to install - just a lot more time-consuming - as long as you RTFM beforehand. (BTW, props to those who warned me about this -saved me considerable hassle!)

 

I think there'll also need to be a section on forums and their conventions - every n00b will need to join at least one, and despite being a seemingly simple thing, it can be a bit daunting to the outsider.

 

BTW, are there any cartoonists/illustrators in the house? I've been trying to do cuddly penguins all morning, but the results are just abstract and un-fluffy :(

[Havin_it]

I've been putting the ideas together this morning, and had a stab at some graphics too. The materials are up on the site:

 

http://thejoyoftux.net/workfiles/TheJoyOfTux-layout-draft.pdf
[Sketch of main content areas]

http://thejoyoftux.net/workfiles/TheJoyOfTux-layout-draft.odt
[Same thing, in editable OpenDocument format if anyone wants to annotate, just mail it back to me]

http://thejoyoftux.net/workfiles/penguin.png
[A penguin I did in Freehand.  Not very cuddly but hey, if you're an artist, feel free to jump in..!]

 

Sorry for not making live links, but I don't wanna get spidered until I'm ready. Be glad to hear your thoughts on the plan so far.

[Havin_it]

Just an update on current progress. Aomighty is helping out now and we are just starting to write articles and content. If anyone sees things in the above document they fancy having a go at, just get in touch (email addy further up the page).

 

We're especially looking for people with experience in:

- SuSE

- Fedora

- Ubuntu

- Linspire (yes I know it is despised by many, but it is a n00b distro!)

- Mac OS (Mac switchers are invited to the party too!)

 

We'll also be doing articles on "Win/Mac equivalent" software apps too, so if you're a Gaim guru, OOo oracle or Firefox fanatic, we want to hear from you! We have a draft list for these apps online at:

 

http://thejoyoftux.net/workfiles/aomighty/equivalents.html

 

If you'd like to suggest/write about any other apps, let us know. (Remember the scope is limited to widely-used, mainly 'recreational' type apps. For example, we're not looking for equivalents to Visual Studio .net - that's for a different site!)

[steppenwolf1984]

Maybe a questionaire on Which distro fits ? based on the answers given, not a new idea but probably helpful..... Gonna check the site out now...WOOT!

[steppenwolf1984]

ahem...note to self...read posts carefully. Bought domain name ...not a site yet....yeah, I KNEW THAT !!!!