Daniel Lawson wrote:
I've long maintained that this isn't the case. However, I'm not the average user, and I dare say neither are you.
Agreed! I am sure that I am not an average user, whatever that may be. Neither can I put back the clock back and experience, first hand, the feeling of installing a Linux distribution for the first time (although I have observed quite a few of my friends doing so fairly recently). When reaching policy decisions on what we think a newbie wants/needs in a distribution, experienced users are at a disadvantage because we cannot put ourselves into a beginners mindset. A real-life demonstration of at least one newbie going through the process may be a useful reminder of what it was like when we started out.
One reason the LUG has officially recommended Ubuntu (and in the past, Fedora Core) was to limit the myriad of choice a new LUG member has as to which distribution to use /to a distribution that majority of people who were able to offer assistance were familiar with/.
I acknowledge that is that there is a commendable amount of assistance offered for Ubuntu, particularly on this list, but it is often addressing problems which I have never experienced as a Slacker. I hardly qualify as a geek (my background is in Womens Studies) but I rarely have a problem which I need to raise on this list, so it may appear that... 1.The exposure of Slackware is diminished because of the absence of problems to discuss (invisibility because of stability). 2. The Ubuntu community seems to be so supportive because bleeding-edge distros need more support than stable ones. regards, ********************************************* Dr Denise J. Bates, PO Box 50, Meremere New Zealand E-mail: dbates(a)iconz.co.nz Telephone 09-2336433 Mobile 021-2541330 *********************************************