Re: educating users

Paul J. Wilson wrote:
> The way I see it, the problem is not about the gentoo installer, but a 
> problem of perceptions between the developers and the users. There is a 
> further division between the "power users" and the "noobs".
> 
> It's easier said than done, but each side should step outside their own 
> experience. To a developer, "easy" meains opening VI and drawing on 
> their knowledge of hot keys and bash syntax. To the average user, "easy" 
> means selecting options from a menu , or not selecting anything at all 
> to have things turn out as intended.

To me, "easy" means following the very clear directions layed out for you in the 
install guide and being able to use nano. I may be wrong, but I believe my cat 
can use nano.

> Regular, everyday users tend not to have the time to spend on the finter 
> points of linux and gentoo in particular. If the aim of the gentoo 
> installer project is to make Gentoo more accessable to these types of 
> users, then it's not unreasonable to expect these users to reach out 

That's not the aim. The aim is to make installs *faster* and more 
automated...not easier.

> It's also obvious from the responses that some users do NOT find the 
> handbook accessable. This can't be simply explained away by lack of 
> intelligence. Again, what is obvious to some is not obvious to others, 
> especially those who are not trained to think in technical terms. 
> Brushing off the questions of every-day users as the work of "noobs" is 
> a very easy and sloppy thing to do.

People who can't follow the handbook are people that can't pay attention long 
enough to read a complete sentence. If someone can't install Gentoo because of 
ADD, that's not our problem.

> There is a huge disconnect happening here. On the one hand, the Gentoo 
> front matter seems to state that Gentoo is "all about choices" and goes 
> on to strongly imply that the distribution can be all things to all 
> users. There are a sub-set of users who 1. don't find the detail and 
> fine-point instruction in the manual helpful 2. don't have the time to 
> manually configure everything or 3. are not computer literate. It's 
> obvious that there are large numbers of people who want to use gentoo 
> but whose needs are not being met. I have the impression that the 
> gentoo-installer project is an attempt to meet the needs of such users.

Gentoo is not exactly targeted at *any* of those groups of users. As stated 
above, that is *not* the intention of the installer.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer                                   Installer Project
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