EvaluateUbuntuGuide

Revision 13 as of 2005-11-03 20:32:14

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Summary

Ubuntu Guide (ubuntuguide.org) was a valuable source of help for early versions of Ubuntu, but it is now out of date and (somewhat inappropriately) concentrated on blunt non-graphical solutions. To solve this, redirecting the site to help.ubuntu.com will be investigated, specialized docs will be produced for some topics, and several feature goals will be registered to make some of the Guide's command-line hackery unnecessary.

Rationale

  • The Ubuntu Guide has not been updated recently, and some of the individual answers are no longer up to date, relevant or appropriate.
  • The Guide concentrates on command-line answers, making Ubuntu sometimes seem more difficult than it is.
  • The presence of many of the questions in the Guide are symptoms of missing, undiscoverable, or difficult and/or poorly documented features in Ubuntu itself.

Use cases

  • Jonathan switches from Kubuntu to Ubuntu. A couple of months later, his ISP changes their proxy server and he wants to know how to configure it in Ubuntu. So he searches the Web for "ubuntu proxy server".
  • Marian switches from Gentoo to Ubuntu, and is confused by the lack of a "root user". She Googles for "root account in ubuntu".
  • Eun Park wants to know how to enter Korean text in Ubuntu. She searches at Yahoo Korea for "한국어 ubuntu".

Review

This is a high-level review of Ubuntu Guide, mentioning features that need developing in Ubuntu to make the answers unnecessary. See also DesktopGuide and ServerGuide.

Getting Started

This section should be redundant with the front page of ubuntu.com. If it isn't, ubuntu.com needs redesigning.

Getting UbuntuGuide

Should be redundant with an Ubuntu CD, or with the top of the guide itself.

Repositories; Ubuntu Updates; Add-On Applications

Should become unnecessary once RepositoryDialogDesign (and SoftwareManager) are implemented.

Commercial Applications

???

Users Administration

Less necessary with gnome-about-me

Should be mostly unnecessary once there is a unified Accounts control panel

Hardware

  • Spec graphical X configuration tool.
  • Autoconfigure X including enablement of the drivers.
  • Automatically turning on DMA
  • look into why cds sometimes don't unmount
  • palm os devices

CD/DVD burning

  • integrated CD burning solution
  • Integration of burning solution and image ripping solution.

Networking

First sections less necessary with NetworkMagic Dialup needs to be much easier

  • easy sharing solution (samba configuration)

Network folders problems?

Remote Desktop

A dedicated guide should be written for this.

Windows

  • find Windows partition & mount them

Security

Rescue Mode

GraphicalRescueMode needed? (like Windows "Safe Mode", but more guided?) GrubConfigRecovery

  • graphical/curses rescue mode

Tips & Tricks

Almost all of these are already covered in System > Preferences, or are workarounds for enhancements needed in upstream applications (e.g. the Boot Manager).

  • Corey needs to report a bug about "Empty Trash" really emptying the trash.

Implementation

  • ubuntuguide.org should redirect to help.ubuntu.com.

Discussion

  • The Ubuntu Guide was evaluated, hacked up and integrated into Ubuntu by the documentation team. The "official" version of the guide is found by clicking "System->Help" and selecting "Starter Guide". It will also be available online. As for the wiki, the DocumentationTeam and WikiTeam are working hard on it.

  • Reply: The point here is not to create/improve documentation, but evaluate what can be made easier so no guide will be needed. E.g. easier installation of nvidia/ati drivers (two recent howto's for ati drivers for breezy already have been viewed for more than 10,000 times together! And one already has over 100 replies. All this in 5 days!). Maybe it needs a better title.

  • I feel that this is something Ubuntu strives to be best at, the more work that is done to improve the ease of which new users can switch to Ubuntu the better in my opinion. It would be really good if the people who work on the above suggestions try to keep the DocumentationTeam in the loop as much as possible. Often late in development things like the above can change making parts of our documentation redundant/incorrect, which was defiantly an issue during Breezy development. The only other thing I would like to add is that not only should the above be evaluated, but people such as regular forum users, people who help out on IRC often and docteam people like myself are also good sources of knowledge on what things could be made easier, so pick our brains too! - RobertStoffers