[NCLUG] Anecdotal Research Question

Chad Perrin perrin at apotheon.com
Sun Jul 3 11:13:34 MDT 2011


On Sun, Jul 03, 2011 at 10:59:29AM -0600, Brennen Bearnes wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Bob Proulx <bob at proulx.com> wrote:
> 
> > Your goal is laudable but people are people and will have strong
> > attachments and opinions.  If this were a club of car enthusiasts and
> > you were to ask for a car recommendation you wouldn't be surprised
> > people to be strongly Ford or strongly Chevy biased.
> 
> Bob makes a pretty good point here. I think in some ways the most
> useful question is not be "what distro should a newbie pick" - this is
> often in flux - but the meta-questions that guide how one approaches
> selecting, installing, and using an OS.

I got the impression the question was not so much "What should all new
users choose?", but was instead "What are the various important options
that should be presented to new users, and what are the major reasons a
given new user might choose any of them over the others?"  Ultimately,
what a new user should choose depends on his/her goals and preferences,
and as a result recommendations must be based on matching the "right"
distro to the user.


> 
> My list includes the following, in no particular order:
> 
> - Political concerns - how free is it, etc.?

I think that's probably more important for a second choice, though of
course it is *somewhat* important for a first choice.


> 
> - Quality of the installation process

Quality in this case is a very personal matter.


> 
> - Ease of use and robustness of package management utilities

"Ease of use" really depends on use case and user preference.


> 
> - Breadth, depth, and freshness of available packages
> 
> - Ease of installing stuff that isn't packaged
> 
> - General rate of churn
> 
> - Size of existing user base, Google-ability of good documentation,
> forums, mailing lists, etc.
> 
> And a handful of basic practices that make life easier:
> 
> - Put your home directory on its own sizable partition

If you have storage space to burn, you might also consider leaving some
empty space on the drive that can later host a different OS, thus easing
the transition if you want to try a different Unix-like system.  That's
not always important, though.


> 
> - For desktop Linux, don't worry about partitioning schemes beyond that
> 
> - Keep a checklist of the stuff you want to install right away any
> time you switch distros or set up a new machine.
> 
> - Keep rough notes on the little customization tricks and hacks you
> learn as you go
> 
> - Start learning a version control system

That's an interesting addition.  I think it really depends on the person,
though.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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