… of course we all have our own pet things to do after a new install.
Typically, my very first things to do after a fresh openSUSE installation are
get internet functioning
setup my repositories for easy software installation (oss, non-oss, update and packman) [others to be added later only after one understands implications and how to work around problems that can crop up]
update my multimedia (to have entertaining music for remainder of setup)
tune desktop and install other custom applications …
Whats the view? Should that (with more detailed but still simple instructions) be added as a page to the Installation/stickie, or as a different stickie, or a how-to ?
My view is it does not belong in the stickie for installation (but should be a how-to), but I concede thats sort of a border line call. I’m sure others see this different. What does everyone think?
<snip>
>
> My view is it does not belong in the stickie for installation (but
> should be a how-to), but I concede thats sort of a border line call. I’m
> sure others see this different. What does everyone think?
>
> Thank you for your input.
>
Oldcpu;
Have you considered using the stickie to give links to various HowTos.
e.g.
For help setting up your Internet connection see: http:// blah.blah
For help with Samba see: http://xyz
etc.
Just my 2 cents worth.
–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
I think its a good idea. … If we can work together on this thread, to create a consolidated list of wiki guides/how-tos/items that are not already covered (but in the view of our membership absolutely MUST be covered as the majority of new users need the information), then either myself or one of the other mods can create a new wiki “add on” post to the stickie, with a useful wiki list.
Here are some links to posts that were in the old 11.0 stickie, that I hope to include in the 11.1 stickie, once the equivalent links are populated:
>
> PV;1908059 Wrote:
>> Have you considered using the stickie to give links to various HowTos.
>> e.g.
>> For help setting up your Internet connection see: http:// blah.blah
>> For help with Samba see: http://xyz
>> etc.
>> Just my 2 cents worth.
> I think its a good idea. … If we can work together on this thread,
> to create a consolidated list of wiki guides/how-tos/items that are not
> already covered (but in the view of our membership absolutely MUST be
> covered as the majority of new users need the information), then either
> myself or one of the other mods can create a new wiki “add on” post to
> the stickie, with a useful wiki list.
>
> Here are some links to posts that were in the old 11.0 stickie, that I
> hope to include in the 11.1 stickie, once the equivalent links are
> populated:
<snip>
Oldcpu;
With a little more thought on this. It might be a good idea to post links
to the HowTos pertinent to a particular forum in the stickie for that forum,
even if these are repeated from the links in the “Newbie stickie”. I’m not
sure if Novel allows posting links to sites other than those owned by
Opensuse, but I think it would be good to post links to openprinting.org and
swerdna’s Network HowTos.
–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
I ran a VBox install of 11.1 rc1 earlier today and it was totally trouble free. The new partitioner was really not that different (at least not to me), seen one you seen them all.
Just a fwiw, this might be worth a look at . . . the Ubuntu - - community documentation page https://help.ubuntu.com/community which starts a hierarchy of high-level categorized menu pages. The broad simply-worded categories with progressive drill-down might facilitate more/better newbie usage. The sub-pages seem to be written with new, English-as-second-language, users in mind. Again, just fwiw . . .
The formatting is nice … but I confess picking nice colours to display things is most definitely NOT my forte’ … Thats more “marketing”, and thats a Ubuntu strong point, but its not something I would dream of trying to compete against in a forum stickie. Also, such a marketing presentation (with nice colours and fonts) is the sort of thing that someone with a different skill set than I would have to tackle.
Also, from what I saw with a cursory look, the scope of the Ubuntu page is well beyond Installation, while I am trying hard to focus on only installation for Newbies, with ONLY selected post install pointers (not post install guides) on where to look after the install is complete. Also, that Ubuntu page most definitely comes across more as something that would be compared vs an openSUSE wiki, and not compared to a stickie on our forum. I would like to keep this in context.
There may (hopefully) come a time when our forum posts and wiki posts are more closely merged, but I don’t think we are there yet. I know I am definitely not up to creating a wiki page (with fancy fonts/colours) specific to openSUSE-11.1 installation at this time. Nor likely for the future. Again, fancy fonts/colours are not my forte. Someone else who enjoys spending lots of time iteratively trying different fonts/colours, and who enjoys that sort of stuff would need to do that.
I’ve spent the past couple of hours playing with a Fedora live CD and looking at their documentation, to see what I can pick up there. … Thus far, I think we look as good, if not better, than Fedora documentation/live-CD.
wrt Ubuntu, I get overwhelmed by the vast amount of Ubuntu documentation. Plus, given I find fedora interesting, and Ubuntu boring, I think someone else (other than myself) needs to go thru the Ubuntu forums for “newbie installation stickie” material.
As I said, just fwiw - doesn’t appear to be much. I didn’t mean it really as a literal example, much more for its simple categorization broken down in subpages to manageable and readable amounts. I saw the hardware section there is more of a comparison to what you are doing, with 10 broad easily-understood (and fairly non-technical) wording sub-sections, linked to common-english written pages. That was my gist . . .
If there are any specific modifications we can add from their pages, its never too late to throw them in.
To “everyone”, please feel free to post recommendations from any such observations here (the more specific the recommendation the better) and we can add them if it is in scope of our stickie, and if the membership deems it worthwhile.
Ultimately, outside the scope of our forum, it would be good to see a proper marketing style wiki, with nice formatting, along the lines of the Ubuntu page (which I think is a form of wiki) created by the openSUSE community.
> In particular NNTP users reply on this thread, and NOT on the
> locked stickie thread.
Unless I miss my best guess it is impossible for NNTP users to even see
“stickies”, much less respond to them. And, I believe that is a known limitation
with no ‘fix’ contemplated. (But, I’d love to be proven wrong.)
> Not to nitpick, but isn’t “newbie” kind of denigrating terminology?
Shouldn’t be. Newbies are the most important folks here. I mean, if only
oldcpus were allowed here what would they do, fight about which whatzit is best?
Anyway, everyone is new sometimes. And at ALL times everyone is new about
something. (Like, I’ve been using Linux a long time but consider myself a BIG
TIME newbie in some things I’ve never used, or tried to use.) Words are words, only.
On the other hand, though I don’t believe the use of newbie is denigrating in
the name of this (or any other) thread, I DO believe the thread is misnamed
because it has GOOD info for even the most experienced Linux user! And,
therefore I suggest it NOT be used.
I think something I would find useful would be a description of the different approaches to upgrading, with their pros and cons. E.g.
Doing a fresh install, but maintaining the /home directory (nice clean install; but you loose many settings)
Doing an upgrade from the DVD (slightly cluttered - 11.0 to 11.1 RC1 had some issues that may have been cleared by now; but you get a proper 11.1 install, as it uses the images)
Running zypper dup (Not sure about this one. I guess you keep everything you had, including all software and settings, upgraded to 11.1 versions; but is it a true 11.1 install - e.g. do you get new software that was introduced in 11.1, like the new package front end, or just new versions of old software?)
I confess the stickie was intended and specifically written for NEW USERS and not experienced users. The philosophy I had was NEW USERS must have a stickie like this. More experienced users could use such a stickie, but its not as essential for them.
If calling a “NEW USER” a newbie is offensive, then it can be changed. But having typed that willingness to change, I have to state I strongly disagree that a post with a title for “newbies” is insulting. I consider myself a newbie in many areas (just the other day someone one asked me about ram disks and tmpfs of which I know absolutely nothing - I’m a real newbie there and I do NOT find that insulting).
I do not want to expand the scope of this stickie to more than just NEW USERS, for if I do, there will be no end to suggested changes. I think if one wants a general installation guide for all classes of users, then a wiki along the lines of what Ubuntu has in place, or a Release Note along the lines of what Fedora has in place, is more reasonable. I deliberately avoided that approach. This stickie was written for newbies and it is intended for newbies. If others benefit, thats great, but that was not the purpose.
These are good points but I struggle a bit with them in terms of scope. Point #1 to me is the most useful for New Users, but it assumes one has already an openSUSE install in place. Hence one is not a complete newbie. Still this is a good point, and I need to ponder how to fit it in.
Point #2 and #3 go into the entire clean install, vs update install, vs zpper dup install, and I do not want to get into that debate in a stickie. Many of us have strong views on this, and to me the users who have the strongest views are also the ones who are by no means newbies. Its difficult for anyone to write a narrative on the pros and cons of either approach, with out showing their bias. Hence I see these are definite valid considerations, but to me they belong in a general installation wiki, or in a separate clearly laid out how-to/guide, but not in a newbie stickie. In particular, to the maximum extent practical, I prefer not to delve into areas where there is room for subjective debate.
I’ve been pondering the best way to do this, and IMHO what would be best is if there was an openSUSE wiki, explaining this, and explaining partitioning for New Users. Then I could simply point to such a wiki, reminding new users to learn a bit about partitioning and /home partitioning IF they do not have a simple PC setup.
Unfortunately, the only URL I could find was this out of date SuSE-7.0 wiki:
[SDB: Partitioning for SuSE Linux - openSUSE](SDB - openSUSE Wiki :Partitioning_for_SuSE_Linux)
It looks like this has not been updated by anyone in the openSUSE community for a very long time.
Above I failed to adequately distinguish between the community documentation - the wiki - and the forum stickie, where you are focused. Sorry about that. What I had been initially looking for over there was the new user guide I remembered, a simple categorized list of the most common installation questions. That apparently no longer exists, but I think this is what replaced it, and would be their counterpart to what you are doing: New to Ubuntu? Start here… - Ubuntu Forums. It’s the stickie atop their “Absolute Beginner Talk” subforum which is prominently displayed at the top of the Forum main page - giving greater prominence to this section is perhaps a useful thought in itself.
>
> oldcpu;1908270 Wrote:
>> I confess the stickie was intended and specifically written for NEW
>> USERS and not experienced users. The philosophy I had was NEW USERS
>> must have a stickie like this. More experienced users could use such a
>> stickie, but its not as essential for them.
>>
>> If calling a “NEW USER” a newbie is offensive, then it can be changed.
>> But having typed that willingness to change, I have to state I strongly
>> disagree that a post with a title for “newbies” is insulting. I
>> consider myself a newbie in many areas (just the other day someone one
>> asked me about ram disks and tmpfs of which I know absolutely nothing -
>> I’m a real newbie there and I do NOT find that insulting).
>>
>> I do not want to expand the scope of this stickie to more than just NEW
>> USERS, for if I do, there will be no end to suggested changes. I think
>> if one wants a general installation guide for all classes of users, then
>> a wiki along the lines of what Ubuntu has in place, or a Release Note
>> along the lines of what Fedora has in place, is more reasonable. I
>> deliberately avoided that approach. This stickie was written for
>> newbies and it is intended for newbies. If others benefit, thats great,
>> but that was not the purpose.
>>
>> These are good points but I struggle a bit with them in terms of scope.
>> Point #1 to me is the most useful for New Users, but it assumes one has
>> already an openSUSE install in place. Hence one is not a complete
>> newbie. Still this is a good point, and I need to ponder how to fit it
>> in.
>>
>> Point #2 and #3 go into the entire clean install, vs update install, vs
>> zpper dup install, and I do not want to get into that debate in a
>> stickie. Many of us have strong views on this, and to me the users who
>> have the strongest views are also the ones who are by no means newbies.
>> Its difficult for anyone to write a narrative on the pros and cons of
>> either approach, with out showing their bias. Hence I see these are
>> definite valid considerations, but to me they belong in a general
>> installation wiki, or in a separate clearly laid out how-to/guide, but
>> not in a newbie stickie. In particular, to the maximum extent
>> practical, I prefer not to delve into areas where there is room for
>> subjective debate.
>
> Can the newbie term on the title be replaced with something like
> NEWOPENSUSERS
> In green representing the suse color.
>
> Just my not important 2-cents:)
>
>
oldcpu;
Perhaps a title that describes the contents of the stickie would be
appropriate. Your exact choice of title will be determined by the contents
but I’m thinking of something like “General Information and Resources” or
even “General Information for the new user”. Another two cents worth.
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
Thanks! I’m not sure changing the title is an easy option now, because of the follow on posts and the possibility of NNTP propagation (with the risk of isolated child reply posts).
After reading your comment, I did write a short one sentence line scoping the stickie (in the 2nd post).
- community documentation page