Since I'll be way for a while, it'll be some time before I can work through the comments and update the text. Thanks for (as always) a detailed set of feedback. On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:26:03 -0800 (PST), "Rahul Sundaram" <rahulsundaram@xxxxxxxxxxx> said: > > You might want to write a more cheerful and less > technical introduction Definitely. I've written the Introduction twice and still don't like it much - it lacks energy. I came to the conclusion that much of the problem was focus - it has to clearly state what Fedora Core is and why the reader should be interested enough to spend two hours installing and setting it up. > End users typically might not under what open source > or 64/32 bit systems means. Try throwing around words > like user friendly, full blown office,suites, games > and stuff if you are targetting newbies esp desktop > users When I thought about the the target audience I actually came to a different view. I admit this that this is entirely based on my experience and may be totally wrong, but FWIW here were my assumptions, in no particular order: - The main audience for FC are people interested in IT. They may be enthusiasts, students or professionals. The last group include people involved in science and research but not necessarily trained in IT, although they use it heavily (I was surprised by the number of people involved in research and academia on the development list). - We can safely assume some knowledge of Windows, but this is tricky because Windows enables people to do some technically complex things without being aware of the underlying technology. Linux tends to demand understanding before you can get things to work... - We can't assume any knowledge of UNIX or Linux, even though a lot of people now have a little. Since a lot of Linux users are learning piecemeal, rather than through academic courses or job-releated training, you can't assume that a user will know any specific piece of information that isn't in the document. - So the user will assume that any new thing that they aren't familiar will work like Windows. - Computers, routers etc. are cheap enough that (in Europe anyway) anyone who wants a network will have one. A lot of the queries on LinuxQuestions relate to networks, and in many cases home networks. Interestingly this means that DHCP and network connectivity are nearly everywhere, stand-alone computers and static IPs are exceptional rather than the default. - We can't make assumptions about hardware. As well as non x86 architectures, it's cheap enough to build a computer with multiple NICs, RAID etc. that a home machine can look like a corporate server if the user wants. There's enough surplus boxes around now that it might actually *be* an ex-corporate server. - Since people also use Fedora for testing, development or just teaching themselves, the network may look like a corporate network as well, and may actually be a corporate or academic network (dorms, research and teaching labs etc.). This is why the Introduction has a note about not installing on an existing network without talking to the administrators... - The balance of the questions etc. that I've seen suggest that Linux is primarily being used as a server, development platform or as a hobby. The primary desktop is probably still Windows, though this now seems to be shifting. - We can't assume where they got FC from. In the UK newsagents stock dozens of magazines, and in a large town there will be Linux magazines in the computing section. Also Linux books in the bookshops. Most of these include discs with Linux distributions. The Government-sponsored academic network (JANet) maintains public mirrors of education-related software that are dominated by Linux. These are hit very heavily for days when new releases come out. I've probably forgotten some. It'll be very interesting to see from the list feedback what the main areas of interest actually are. -- Stuart Ellis s.ellis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
