[clue-admin] [Fwd: Re: [NCLUG] CLUE InstallFest, 12 Feb 2005]

[David Anselmi]

Crawford Rainwater wrote:
> Folks:
> 
> I received this last evening.  I plan on responding to her to clarify
> that InstallFests are meant for the novice/newbie to attend and try out
> Linux to some degree.  However, I do see her point as well since
> typically I have had myself and several Linux ETC members there to
> assist people out with a 1:4 ratio sometimes of savvy/guru:newwbie.

I know Liz from one of the CLUE installfests (years ago).  Here are my 
thoughts.

If I were to sit down with a raw beginner, where would I start?  I don't 
think you can take someone from "what's a command line?" to doing 
anything useful in a day.  And as much as some distros may be "ready for 
grandma", I can't say I'm very interested in explaining to someone which 
menu buttons to push to read their email.  I much prefer the "I'm 
learning this stuff and you can give me a boost" types.  I'm not much 
good helping your basic office user because I don't know how to make 
printing work, nor which admin widgets their distro uses to get things 
done.  And they don't really want to talk about new developments in 
routing protocols or how you might run a firewall at run-level 0.

Perhaps for her students, CSU could do a HOWTO that gets them the same 
system as they use in the lab.  That's probably what they want most 
anyway--something that works like what they know without having to know 
how it works.

Perhaps the people who set up the CSU lab can do their own installfest 
around that theme (during work hours if they aren't motivated enough to 
give back to Linux).  Or they could come with students to our 
installfest and help bridge the gap between what we do and what they 
want.  I'd be happy to help students follow the CSU lab HOWTO.

Perhaps CLUE or NCLUG can sit down with Liz and/or a few students and 
see how we can align our skills and their needs.  As a "troubleshooter" 
I'm probably not the best intro to installfest for these guys (I'd like 
to think I can change, but I'm hesitant to foist Debian on a 
newbie--maybe I shouldn't be).  But I know a few people who are only 
really interested in installs that work easily and they would be much 
better for this group.

Perhaps her students need some kind of instruction in this.  I've 
thought in the past about teaching an intro to Linux class (more than a 
day long)--maybe this is the audience for it.

Perhaps Liz should recommend (for extra credit?) reading a sysadmin book 
(Frisch, Nemeth, or something else like K&P's "The UNIX Programming 
Environment") before they come to the installfest.  I don't think any of 
us are interested in "drop off you computer and we'll set it up just so 
with complete instructions for you".  So if they make the effort to 
learn a little it will go a long way (give a man a fish... and all that).

To me "help a newbie get Linux installed" is problematic.  What then? 
Can they get anything useful done with it?  Can they keep it running 
(patches, install new software, fix config issues when they come up)? 
(Shoot, my minimalist, open community preferences probably don't fit 
very well with most newbies, much as I wish it were otherwise.)

I'll be interested to see what others say, and I'm really interested in 
continuing the discussion.

HTH,
Dave