Ubuntu 10 will have beginner's manual included

Looks like Ubuntu is taking another step towards usability by including a beginner's manual in wiki form with every distro of 10.04. I find myself searching quite a bit after every install to perform various tasks - I wonder if this will eliminate that need?

Source: Lifehacker

OK. maybe I might finally do linux.

I hated the user manuals and help features on Windows, I'll probably hate these too. I already hate the new package manager interface.

Google is my user manual.

Bah! This has been done. About 10 years ago I installed a SuSe Linux because of the promise of ease and usability for morons like me.

The installation was perfect - a certifiable breeze. The instructions to get to a word processor, spreadsheet, browser, etc., all very clear and easy to follow.

After that, however...

The installation was loaded with incomplete and/or non-functioning apps. There were no instructions for command line operations, working with an unfamiliar desktop where you could toggle between multiple variations was tremendously confusing as were, optional GUIs, and pretty much everything else.

Every time I went to a user community and asked questions, I got flamed with insults.

Been there, done that...if I was going to switch, I'd use a Mac. But, the bulk of their user community has swayed me from ever doing that.

When they make a *nix that's entirely operated through CPanel, I'm in.

I think it was impossible for any linux distro to satisfy windows users "at face value" 10 years ago. I think it still is and should not be a serious goal. However, they have come a very very long way -- I think many of today's linux users would not even recognize an install from 2000. I still don't recommend it to people simply on the basis of "ease and usability"; again, no one can out do windows there (maybe google?) IMO, it's more for 1) the curious, 2) people with certain politics, who are probably more inclined to learn new things, and 3) people who are looking for specific kinds of functionality beyond general "ease of use", eg, webservers, and as a programming environment. Most people don't program or run servers, and it's silly to try to appeal to everyone.

To an extent, it still has the array of "incomplete and/or non-functioning apps", but it's much harder to notice since most of the activities your normal consumer will want to engage in are pretty solid, with a range of choices. Again, this is the nature of the model -- it is not one monolithic group of people trying to deliver a single product to a researched marketplace. Notice, there is 5-10 times more software available in a basic linux install as opposed to what you will get off a windows disk.



Exactly. This is a consequence of unix style modularity. The command line is almost always the BASH shell, which is it's own piece of software, and of course all the GNU utilities. But GNU is not directly associated with any of the distros; they do provide plenty of documentation (such as man pages), just you need to understand they are independent of the distro. Altho I agree with most of your other points, vis, linux vs. windows, I would strongly disagree with this one -- there is a lot more high quality documentation for the former. One of my least favorite activities in life is dealing with the flaccid and pathetic windows "help browser".

Also, there is far more variety amongst linux installations than with any other OS, such as the choice of window managers, etc. As you observe, this introduces a lot of potential confusion for newbies used to MS or Mac, where there is just one completely integrated environment.



they are as reactionary and opinionated as most other people -- if you inadvertently put the wrong spin into your question, you will set someone off about something.




Exactly the kind of thing I'm hoping won't happen The desire to "mainstream" linux is on the surface noble, I guess, but maybe also misguided: too much lowest common denominator



Then don't use it. They are just front-ends for apt and dpkg (in Ubuntu) anyway -- which every unnecessary level of abstraction runs a risk of adding unnecessary complications. apt couldn't be simpler as is...

Until adobe gets flash.. or better yet someone else starts making flash players.. that actually run fullscreen on linux.. ignore linux.

So just because Adobe can't get their act together, you're holding every distro accountable? That seems harsh. Do you really use Flash in fullscreen that much?

This would be a great T-shirt. (For nerds, anyway)

It is somewhat adobe's fault, but more it is all sites that use it solely without a vlc option.
Not just fullscreen it has hardware rendering issues with even half screen. And no distro has an alternative flash player built into browsers.

I tried prism as well hoping a disconnect from firefox would increase quality to no avail.

You don't realize the amount of flash you see on the web until it isn't working.

I guess I just don't really see issues out of my Ubuntu 9.10 distro enough to notice a problem with it. I don't really full-size flash much at all and the difference in functionality otherwise has been the same.

I find this a little odd -- I don't have any problem running flash in fullscreen on any of my linux installs. I'm on ubuntu 9.10 right now, but I don't think the distro matters, AT ALL.

http://www.bezzmedia.com/swfspot/tutori ... Flash_Mode



Just go to the adobe site and download/install the "adobe flash player for linux" (either 32 or 64 bit). It takes about 60 seconds and maybe three mouse clicks. And it runs fullscreen...NO PROBLEM.

You have a video card that isn't integrated?
Will try from adobe site instead of package manager.
Based on a laptop with GMA, the cpu processing is nuts. When windows xp was on it, not an issue.

No, I have a ATI Radeon, with their drivers.

But I checked this on my laptop, which is integrated graphics and Xorg drivers. I don't use flash fullscreen very often, to be honest. Anyway, first thing I noticed there is that it did not support fullscreen, but the flash player is one I installed two or three years ago.

So I downloaded an rpm from adobe, and it worked. The single CPU sits at around 20-30%; I don't have a CPU monitor on my windows install but I think it is probably pretty similar. Both OS's put the CPU fan on for the duration when I start eg, a youtube video.

It does do an irritating thing where you have to paste another window up going to fullscreen, but that maybe the older firefox, since it's not like that here.

I have been using Linux for about 10 years now.. and have dual boot with different versions of Windows to mainly play games on it (due to FUD on Windows towards the slower directX)...

I personally would never go back to Windows, for anything apart from a couple of games that I want to play that are only in directX.. OpenGL is far far quicker still!!!.. and about 3 years ahead of directX.

I use Kubuntu, at present due to time problems but used to use gentoo as my main distro of choice (it is compile and go, you do the whole thing.. compile up the kernel / apache / GUI etc.. it makes it very quick, but the compile times are a tad long at times).. but kubuntu is in my opinion better than ubuntu, I perfer KDE over Gnome..

But have always used google as my friend.. but if not able to gain access to the internet, the manaul onboard would be great .

cannot wait for the next and next versions of linux distros they are always 5 years ahead of Windows and support allot more hardware.