Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com From: "Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)" To: Subject: RE: Added setup.exe to User's Guide Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 21:53:54 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 In-Reply-To: <20030325095650.A17542@ns1.iocc.com> Importance: Normal > From: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com [mailto:cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com]On Behalf > Of Joshua Daniel Franklin --8<-- > > IMHO my suggestions adds just that *tiny bit* of extra info > > that makes a new user get the grip - without some of the FAQs. > > This is true, and makes me feel somewhat guilty since one of the goals I > have for the Cygwin documentation is for it to be more accessible to new > users. ;-) - Anyway; I'm glad to hear that... > However, I think it needs to be organized properly. I hate reading > Linux admin books that start out with how to use 'cp' and 'mkdir'. I can just agree with that... > Instead, I need to make a 'If you are new to > Unix' page with a link from the setup-net page. IMO; Don't _include_ the descriptions for 'cp' and 'mkdir' - instead find a relevant pointer to earlier/ better/ whatever description. This is what I wish I've had when I was a new user :-). Nor do I think the links have to be scattered all over the place. Not even a separate page for Unix-newbies should be necessary IMO; unless I'm not too mistaken there is a load of them elsewhere on the net. IMHO - just find a nice one and include a pointer to it e.g. something like this, with the link replaced with a relevant one: "If you don't understand the text that follows, you will have to look at http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/ for some basic knowledge." Another possibility; a nice google-search-link. Idea: Maybe define "If you're new to cygwin and/or Linux/Unix; note that the information behind links marked with the word NEWBIE might help to explain things." and then use " NEWBIE: http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/ " wherever apropriate. --8<-- > While there is some of the gnostic knowledge attitidue to why all "gnostic" is a new word for me, do you mind to explain it to me (my dicationary doesn't cover it). --8<-- > But I don't want to put up a page > that gives a perfunctory description that someone will try, see that it > doesn't work, and then give up or complain ("Cygwin is really crappy"). > I want it to be *right*. ... disfunctional descriptions are a pain for everybody ;-) > > Example of the last: > > With minimal Internet online-time I have to pay > > more than $100/month currently. > > I have no intention to increase the amount on those bills e.g. by > > downloading the entire cygwin. > > So why don't you move? Doesn't help much, or not. That would need to be outside of Europe. AFAIK all of northern EU, at least, has HIGH telecom fees. (I know for sure about England/UK, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Guessing: Germany and France too) > While I can't totally empathize since I've never had high Internet bills, > until recently I was on US dialup (that's 53Kb down at best). I've been around since it was 2400 bps ;-) - believe me; that is slow. > That's one > reason I got involved with the cygwin-apps discussions, since it was so > difficult to get the minimal installation I wanted. A lot of progress has > been made, but there is still a lot to do. I wouldn't mind joining, but I might end up in a "sister-project" to cygwin; the geekgadgets project for the Amiga. The idea behind it is almost the same, but there are just a handful people developing it. (No wonder; it has been decreasing since 1995 or some such - for obvious reasons). I currently have very little time for pet projects... (Undergraduate, almost done w B.Sc EE) > Thankfully, I now have a broadband connection. Until a few months back it wasn't possible to get one where I live. > > Am I that unclear in style of writing? > > I find it alarming. > > It's not you, it's me. :) > For some reason (I believe it was when I lived in Japan, since > you are often > rewarded for being vague there), I have developed a habit of throwing > hints at people when I know what I want. I need to stop. Ah... I believe I'm the type of person you need to be straight forward with ;-) that could be "incompatible types" :-]. (Many Finns and Swedes are like me, I believe.) > What I meant, is: > > Can you give some links to posts that were helpful to you? > To a lot of us on the list, how setup.exe works is much more intuitive now > than it was a long time ago. Some posts are what we would consider obvious > information, but a revelation to a newer user. Well, I'll try to look up some that might be useful - time permitting. > On Mon, Mar 24, 2003, Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail) wrote: > > Well, now to the collection of words; something like this, maybe: > > Thanks for providing this. A couple suggestions from experience: > > --Provide examples I knew it wasn't perfect. ;-) IMO this kind of texts can take ages to perfect. The suggestions you had about giving examples is one refinement, quite obvious in hindsight. Using English doesn't help me either ;-) and I suppose text in Swedish wouldn't be acceptable? ;-) > I will probably add something similar when I get the chance. If you'd like > to look at the actual source used to create the Cygwin webpages, > it's here: > > -net.sgml?cvsroot=src> > > A real 'diff -up' might be applied directly. :) Yes I know... > Because of your Internet connection misfortunes, however, I suspect that the > very large downloads of all the build tools are somewhat beyond your means. > If you're wanting to help with the documentation, send me your address offlist > and I'll mail you a CDR (with sources to comply with the GPL). Ahh... downloading packages is no problem (I have means to get it on CDR). Getting CVS contents - maybe not syncing it - might be a bigger trouble, I've never tried it. > As a final note, I want to encourage everyone to keep sending thoughts to > the list. The discussion is very helpful, and though I have a limited amount > of time I plan to work on improving the Cygwin documentation long-term. Time seems to always be a culprit... But my experience is coincident wih yours; discussions brings things forth, might it be slow and time consuming. /Hannu E K Nevalainen, Mariefred, Sweden --END OF MESSAGE-- -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/