aRTee Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 I have just more or less completed an article for people new to linux and open source software, please give it a read here: http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/learninglinux.html and comment on the contents in this topic. I'd like to have your feedback (and adjust the article if necessary) before mailing the link to Linux Today, PCLO, Desktoplinux, etcetc. (anywhere else where I may/should advertise this article?) If you feel that parts of the article could too easily be seen as a flame, please tell me. Any suggestions for additional info/comments are also welcome. Most appreciated are comments that propose an alternative, instead of just saying: this or that is not good... ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyv Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 I thought that was a pretty good article. Don't really see how you could make it much better without making it longer which would also make it worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 Once I got past the intro, I liked the article. If I were a real newbie (instead of an on-going newbie), I would have gotten lost reading about the "battle". Consider a shorter intro getting into the meat of the article, and move the oss explanation into an appendix or (If you don't like organs!:lol:) an addendum to the end of the article. Newbies do not want to know about politics, they just want to play. After playing successfully for a bit, then they want to find the cause. If you put the cause first, you may just put off some perfectly happy newbies who may never care about politics but will be dedicated users nevertheless. Also by putting the oss defense at the end, you can go into the depth that it deserves. :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted May 25, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 johnnyv, agree completely that it should not get any longer. Ixthusdan, I will think about how to arrange it so that it becomes more interesting and easier to read for newbies with less interest in the background of things but more in the practical side. Would you say the whole first part titled "Open Source community and development" should be pushed to the back? So that it would be: - Troubleshooting, problemsolving - Learning to use your new Linux system - Open Source community and development hmm, I'd have to rewrite some bits to have it make sense, but that can be done. I'm not sure if that would make it really better but I will definitely think about it, any other opinions on that? Or on the whole? Oh and by the way, comments on spelling or grammar errors are also welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 26, 2003 Report Share Posted May 26, 2003 Yes, a simple rearrangement would work from what I see. Troubleshooting, problemsolving - Learning to use your new Linux system - Open Source community and development How about -Understanding Linux -Learning to use your Linux system -Open Source Software and Closed Source Software Just title changes, paragraphs are the same. Just suggestions. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 26, 2003 Report Share Posted May 26, 2003 Artee, Yeah very good. I agree with Ixthusdan on the order of things but if it is going to be html as opposed to printed you can avail yourself of hyperlinking the last part at the beginning. I think you could be a bit stronger on the other OS comparison, particularly about the quote If things don't behave as you, as a novice Linux user, expect or would wish, that doesn't mean they are wrong unquote. You might explain that they may be used to a certain operating system doing something a certain way and therefore an alternative may seem not to be working the way they expect because that isn't the way the OS does it. This seems to be a common 'newbie' problem. quote just enter man:/[command] as a URL (link), unquote. Erm you seem to have hyperlinked this (by mistake?) but you might have to say where they type it. It depends how new a newbie they are I guess. That brings me to the final point. Perhaps state at the beginiing the level of newbie you are targetting? You seem to be getting quite into the writing so perhaps you will have other articles aimed at different levels. Other than that a good brief introduction ..... thumbs up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted May 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 26, 2003 Ixthusdan, thanks for your suggestions, will think about paragraph titles.. Gowator, glad you like it. I like the idea of linking to the latter part, so people interested in the practical side of things can easily skip the first section. I do think (after pondering a bit) that the theory and background should go first, but maybe I should entice a bit more (WIFM- what's in it for me) to go through the whole thing about the background... I will give myself (and all of you ;) ) a couple of days more time to fix it up or give comments; will let you know (and give it a read) when the adapted version is up. For now I'm not forseeing big changes... Thanks for thinking with me on this. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted May 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2003 My girlfriend gave it a read and found many things (being a non-informed computer user) that should be improved,... Especially the jargon is unclear to new users, she knows OSS and Open Source, but GNU etcetcetc should also be explained. Anyway, guess I'll have to change quite a bit more than I had hoped... I'll have an update ready asap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted July 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2003 Ok guys, please give it another go, I have just updated (finally!) the article. Let me know if you like it this way. I know that I haven't taken every bit of comment into account, but one can't make the world happy. I did put a link at the top for those newbies that want to get practical, and I put a small WIFM (what's in it for me) to try to still motivate them to read the background piece. Also, mostly due to my girlfriend's (fiancee, actually, hence the delay, other things to do and plan.... ;) ) remarks, I made GNU and other acronyms clickable, so there would be some explanation of what it is (GPL, OSS etcetc). I would like your input soon, if I don't get any 'no-go' comments, I'll try to get this article linked at the usual places, linux today, PCLO, who knows maybe this time osnews may even link to it (even though I doubt it, but then I don't care about that site anyway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nick0 Posted July 6, 2003 Report Share Posted July 6, 2003 I've had three or four reads of it. The content is good. It forms a basic introduction and does not have the rabid anti-MS tone of some. Entre nous I am as rabid as the next man but I have learned that the naif potential user finds our emotionalism alarming and off-putting. One point I must make. Written material designed to be read on-screen must be presented in a different way from paper-based reading material. It has to be punchier, and more colourful. Even to the extent of embedding graphics, preferably animated. It has to be more like the spoken word. It has to echo in the mind in a way paper based material never does, except in poetry and plots of plays. Do you see what I mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted July 7, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2003 nick0, thanks for your input. Moving images, hmmmm, difficult. But I have added some pics for some stuff that I had trouble explaining, so it has become slightly more colourful. If you have concrete ideas on other images/screenshots that I could add, don't hesitate. On my lack of 'rabid anti-MS tone', I certainly have that, but try to keep it off my site. Beating people away is for other sites/pages/people, I try to lure them over to linux.. :D And actually, I'm trying most to help people who want to make the conversion, who are ready to put in some effort. If you read my 'switching' article, you'll see that I don't try to talk people into linux; I do in real life at times (at work most people have loads of unix experience, I just know they'd love linux; they already have adverse feelings to any MS OS or program as it is... ). Anyway, please find the new version in the old place, and for reference the old version is still on the web; new/latest (last??): http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/learninglinux.html and old: http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/learnin...ux.pre-nos.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted July 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2003 In case anyone cares, it's up now. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted July 9, 2003 Report Share Posted July 9, 2003 I've had three or four reads of it. <snip> Written material designed to be read on-screen must be presented in a different way from paper-based reading material. It has to be punchier, and more colourful. Even to the extent of embedding graphics, preferably animated. It has to be more like the spoken word. It has to echo in the mind in a way paper based material never does, except in poetry and plots of plays. Do you see what I mean? Actually I don't ... There are lots of defined ways of making a site more readable and on-screen reading more enjoyable. Embedding graphics increases download size and bandwidth and thus potentially hosting costs. Animated images often distract from the main content. You could also mean that his sentences are too long and too wide on-screen, in which case I agree. In any case, here is some more 'founded' background (with no disrespect to you, nick0. Perhaps I didn't get your point, but that was a bit hard from the explanation you posted). http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html?/contents.html (check chapter 5: Typography). http://www.alistapart.com/stories/typography/ http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ Darkelve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted July 9, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2003 Hi Darkelve, thanks for the links, I had a quick look them, and it seems I have quite a bit to do to make my site more presentable. Maybe it is because I normally just adjust the size of the window I read my site/any site in to be comfortable; I don't like sites that don't make lines long enough (for my taste); that being said, the point is not that I like my site but that it's usable. So I will take the time and see how I can improve the site.... That being said, I was actually more asking if you agree or not on the contents... but since you had no comments to that... :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qnr Posted July 9, 2003 Report Share Posted July 9, 2003 Please note that I dropped out of HS after 3 months, so any grammatical recommendations I make are probably suspect: s/payed/paid/g ----------------------- assure to be able to I'd use "ensure the ability to" There were a couple of others, but they weren't as "jarring." Nice work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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