"Weaver" <wea...@riseup.net> writes: > On Sat, September 15, 2012 11:32 am, lee wrote: >> "Weaver" <wea...@riseup.net> writes: > > Hello Lee, > > I look forward, breath abate, to constructive criticism. > >> >>> Computed Partitions. >>> >>> / = 10 GB – Bootable ext3 – I would probably go for a little more than >>> this, because the newbie appetite wants to try out everything! >> >> They don't know what packages to select in the first place. > > Of course not. > They don't have access yet! > Once they get to the aptitude interface, they will, however.
No, they need to read the package descriptions first. They should start with a minimal system so that they can learn the basics and try out particular packages. It's not advisable to overwhelm them like are they when they select tasks like kde or gnome and install all the stuff that comes with these. >>> /swap = 4.1 GB which fits nicely with the 2 GB of RAM. >> >> It fits the recommendation of the swap partition being about twice the >> size of the physical RAM. Following this recommendation means that the >> less physical RAM you have, the sooner the system can go down because >> critical processes can be killed. Other than turning off >> overcommitment, the only way to prevent this is manual >> intervention. Therefore, make the swap partition large enough as to >> sufficiently slow the system down to give time for manual intervention >> and to have a chance of it being less likely that critical processes are >> killed. With only 2GB of RAM, you might need a lot more than only 4GB >> of swap for that, and 6GB in total isn't really enough anyway. > > The average Newbie has an average box. You need to describe in detail what kind of people you are talking about and what kind of knowledge you assume they have. What is an "average newbie"? > And, initially, at least, average requirements. Just scan a couple A4 pages at 2400 DPI and open the resulting TIFFs in gimp and you will very likely see gimp or even the whole system go down because it runs out of swap space. That is an "average requirement". Run a game like X3 and it will easily need more than 3GB. Have seamonkey or another graphical web browser open at the same time and that adds about another 1.2GB. That's another "average requirement". Of course, you have a WM of some sort running and emacs, that adds about another 500MB --- if you don't use KDE or gnome. At that point, you're swapping a lot already. Now open gimp, and another 500MB are used before you open an image. I don't even think about doing it, I just do it. It's what I have open most of the time, so that's a "basic requirement" and not even an "average requirement". > This is an i386 system, not 64 bit, and even if that has recently There was a posting on debian-announce a couple days ago, saying something like that the number of Debian installations of the amd64 architecture has recently surpassed the number of installations of the i386 architecture. So you are considering a constantly decreasing minority. How long is it ago that you would buy CPUs that don't support 64bit? About 12 years now? > overhauled i386 installs, it's only because the vast amount of users, in > the Windows world would be classified as 'power-users'. Huh? > A 'power-user', coming into the Debian environment, and confident in What is a "power-user"? I've met some designated as such, and they were clueless users. > his/her capability, would be bringing a more capable box with them that > would answer to their needs. Yes, if they can or want to afford a more capable computer, they might use that. > This is not the need set that we are discussing. The computer you used in this example is as good as any other for this purpose. The issues involved, like the size of the swap partition(s) or the amount of available RAM, would be the same, only with different numbers. >> But then, we already know that the D/i doesn't come up with good >> partition layouts by itself. >> >>> /home =105.9 GB ext3. >> >> Users will have to change their partitioning later. How do you propose >> they do that when all they have to work with is this 120GB disk with the >> swap and / and /home partition? There isn't any room to change >> partitioning. > > What makes you think they are going to stay with that disc? What makes you think they are not going to stay with it? You didn't instruct them anywhere that they will have to buy new hard disks before they can change the layout of the partitions. So why should I assume that they will or are supposed to do that? If you had told them that they will have to buy more hard disks because you are suggesting a bad partition layout, they might have chosen a different layout instead. So why didn't you tell them? Why did you lie to them by telling them that they can just change the partition layout any time later? I already told you many times that you must not mislead people. If we're talking new hardware they need to buy, they might buy an SSD. I haven't seen one yet and can only imagine how fast they are and that a tiny 4GB swap partition on an SSD can be filled up rather quickly so that processes are being killed very soon. Your recommendation would have to be to either use a sufficiently large swap partition and/or to use several swap partitions some of which are on a sufficiently slow disk to give enough time for manual intervention before critical processes might be killed and the system is brought down. You would reasonably prioritise the swap partitions accordingly to make use of the faster SSD first and then use the slower disks. You haven't told them that anywhere, either. The information you propose to give them is very, very insufficient. >>> At the top is an annotation which says: >>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>> “This is an overview of your currently configured partitions and >>> mountpoints. Select a partition to modify its settings (filesystem, >>> mountpoint, etc.), a free space to create partitions, or a device to >>> initiate its partition table.” >>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>> This is beyond Double-Dutch to a newbie. If you said 'mountpoint' to >>> your >>> average newbie, he would be looking round for the horse. Likewise with >>> 'partition' (office furniture) and 'filesystem' (the technique required >>> to get out of jail when they catch him, now that he has his hands on >>> some >>> 'real' hacker software). >> >> Huh? What are you talking about? > > So far, you seem to be the only one struggling with comprehension of this > aspect. > As usual, this will be because there is something wrong with me. If you think so ... What do mount points and partitions and file systems have to do with horses, office furniture and being in jail and "hacker software"? >>> When you need to relay some information to somebody, you need to make an >>> accurate assessment of the communication level of your audience. >>> Otherwise, you simply don't communicate. If they aren't in front of you >>> in >>> order to do this, you assume no knowledge and operate from that >>> 'mountpoint'. >> >> No, you don't. You communicate just as you would, and when you don't >> understand each other, you ask questions and give answers and figure >> things out. > > Through the medium of an installer? No, the D/i unfortunately doesn't support this. Give users a working system before and during the installation so you can communicate with them. Start with lynx and an irc client, that shouldn't be too difficult to add. > In an "extreme" case, it may go like: >> >> "I'm using XXX to do something." >> "What is XXX?" >> "It's a ZZZ." >> "What's a ZZZ?" >> >> ... and I give them a link to an article on wikipedia or something where >> they can look it all up. >> >> Unfortunately, you can't look anything up while stuck in the D/i, > > Yes. > > and >> that is what needs to be changed. That's what I'm saying all the time, getting tired of repeating myself. >>> Here's an example – rough, not at all polished: >>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>> Partitioning >>> Partitions are allocated areas on your hard drive, set by the installer, >> >> "What is a "hard drive"? What do you mean by "allocated"? Will my hard >> drive be full when I make partitions because everything is allocated >> then? Maybe I better shouldn't make any partitions so my hard drive >> doesn't get full. >> >> What happens to the partitions when I quit the installer, do they get >> unset? What if I have several hard drives (like you actually do in this >> example)? Can I make a partition that goes over all my hard drives? I >> don't want many partitions, that's too complicated, and I want to use >> all the hard drives I have, so how do I make a partition out of all of >> them? 120GB isn't much, so I think it would be cool if I could use all >> the hard drives I have. That was so easy with windoze ... Can't I just >> skip this step? I don't really want partitions, they are too >> complicated." > > This is a completely unnecessary complication. > Newbies want something that works and are not looking for complication. These are only a few questions that come to mind, questions clueless users might ask themselves. You need to clarify what you expect from the users you have in mind and to stop making arbitrary assumptions about them. The way you go, you can assume anything and nothing, and that doesn't get you anywhere. If you assume that a user knows X and conclude that therefore you need to do Y, that's fine. It fails when the user doesn't know X because your doing Y may then be futile. Why don't you systematically explain what a partition is, why and when they are needed, what a file system is and what different types are available and what advantages and disadvantages they have and what kind of software goes onto which file system, what swap space is needed for and what needs to be considered ... You need to explain a lot to enable a clueless user to make educated decisions about partitioning and about what is involved. That it is a lot to explain doesn't mean that the explanation has to be complicated or difficult to understand. You just have to make a good one. It's an art and it requires you to first have a deep understanding of what you are planning to explain, and it can greatly help to consider what your audience will be before you start. As an instructor, you should already know this. You're in for some serious hard work. >> There is no mentioning that you are supposed to install your own >> programs in the root file system. It's a bad idea to do that. > > Once again, the requirement is to keep things simple. No, it is not, see above. These things are the way they are, there is no way around that (without radically changing them, which is probably a little beyond what you can do by improving the D/i). Since you cannot change the way things are, you will have to change the explanation you are giving accordingly. That is something you can do. Maybe start by finding out what guides are already there, and if you find it necessary, start writing your own guide and make it available to everyone. In the meantime, give users a working system before and while they are using the D/i. Once they have that, you can put pointers to the available documentation into the D/i so that they can easily find and read it. Wouldn't it be great if the D/i would present you at the partitioning step with something like: ,------------------------------------------------------------ | You can find detailed information that can | | help you to decide about partitioning at | | the following places: | | | | http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual | | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning | | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging | | [...] | | | `----------------------------------------------------------- That could be a menu from which you select an URL and the corresponding page would be displayed in a web browser. You can read that with lynx just fine. Using a link to a wiki page that lists these pages would be better, though. The information could be updated without needing to change the installer. When you have written your guide, list it on that wiki page. Make it a help feature, i. e. tell the users that they can press 'F1' or '?' any time and give them help through this related to whatever point in the installer they happen to be. Really, I wonder why they haven't already done that long ago. Perhaps it's just too simple for anyone to think of? Well, I sent a feature request for this, see #687804. -- Debian testing amd64 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87boh6hex5....@yun.yagibdah.de
