Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:42:44 -0700 (MST) From: Keith Davey <kdavey@gus33.homeip.net> To: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbie packages Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0010301137170.12908-100000@gus33.homeip.net> In-Reply-To: <39FDBE7E.5310B2B9@acuson.com>
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On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, David Johnson wrote: > I've been thinking of ways to help out newbies that don't involve > publishing savvy, programming expertise or marketing skills. Helping out > with the documentation is always a good one. But I'm thinking of one > particular "hole" in the documentation... > > What about a list of appropriate and/or recommended packages to install > for newbies? Many Linux distributions have recommended packages for > beginners, which are selected by default. Instead of making the brand > new user select from two dozen text editors, one is selected by default. > With consumer-oriented operating systems (windows/mac), the packages are > chosen for you far in advance. But in FreeBSD you have thousands of > unfamilar (to the newbie) packages to look over and choose from. All > this choice can be confusing at the novice level. Personaly I think that the only packages a newbie should consern them selves with at first at the Man Pages. Learn the system, then experiment with the ports. However this is just IMHO :) > > So I'm thinking of creating a short article (unofficial) that lists one > or two recommended packages in a variety of categories. I would like to > see a short descriptive paragraph, probably taken from the ports, and a > couple of comments from users. > > So I'm soliciting comments on this idea as a whole, and also your > comments on packages that you have found to be useful for newbies. The > packages I am looking for don't have to be the most powerful, but they > should be appropriate for novices. This could be a dificult list to construct. There will be several opinions on what is best to do. Give newbies a REAL TE like VI or Emacs (abid not easy to learn, but very effective) Or do we give them "training wheels" like PICO or JED to start with and hope they outgrow it... >Categories, off the top of my head: text editor, word processor, > spreadsheet, window manager, desktop, browser, mailer, image processing, > image viewing. I also want a list of packages that are difficult for the > novice, but still essential to learn (like vi), and a list of any > "required" packages that aren't installed by default. > > Thanks, > > David > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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