CoB SysAdmin (Joe Emenaker) wrote: > > > > > On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Craig Sanders wrote: > > > > > 1. what do you expect for free? > > > > Well, one would expect at least a clean install... If people perceive > > Linux/Debian as being impossible to install, then, well, they won't use it > > :) > > Which is one of the points I've been trying to make. I work at a university > and I see many, many students who hear about Debian and they take the time > to come into our computer lab and make the 5-6 disks needed. They take them > home and install them on their PC at home. Since they don't have a whole lot > of time to go reading a bunch of HOWTO's or to go rooting around in the > files of the base install.... *and* since they see no mention of ppp in the > install program or install guide, they go for about 2-3 days of running > Debian before they conclude that this isn't any fun at all (not being able > to connect to the net).... and we lose a potential user. > > On the other hand, I've talked to the few that *have* gotten PPP going > with dselect and they are the most *jazzed* people you will ever meet. > Using dselect through PPP is the most innovative software distribution > concept they have ever seen. They are fascinated... and, more importantly, > they are Debian users for life, pretty much. It's hard to explain. > Dselect, when it *WORKS* (meaning, "when there's a connection to the net > active" pretty much) and when the user *UNDERSTANDS* what the concept > behind it is, I think that it is the SINGLE BEST selling point for Debian. > But, when the user doesn't understand what the idea is behind it, they > think "Why the &$^&*^# did it stick me in *THIS* program. How do I kill it?", > just like *I* used to do for about a year back in the 0.9-0.93R6 days. > > Now, as things seem to stand now, the ppp part seems like almost an after- > thought (as far as its importance to the effective operation of dselect > goes). The base install seems to be more targeted to people with: A) a > live internet connection, B) Debian on CD, or C) The Debian distribution > on another filesystem or NFS. However, like I mentioned, of the people I > deal with each day, about 5% of the Debian newbies fall into that group. > It seems appropriate to mention Occam's Razor at this point, y'know? > > - Joe
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