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Date:      Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:55:59 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Kevin Eliuk <kevin_eliuk@sunshine.net>
To:        FreeBSD Chat <Chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, "FreeBSD Doc." <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Maybe a lot of inputs for new users (fwd)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.970717213428.171D-100000@kevin.sunshine.net>

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Hi All,

I thought -chat and -doc would be a good place to forward
this reply from Per regarding his camp experiences.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 02:41:19 +0200
To: Kevin Eliuk <kevin_eliuk@sunshine.net>
From: Per Eegehauge <phce@image.dk>
Subject: Re: Maybe a lot of inputs for new users

Hi Kevin

I finally got some time to answer some of your questions. My 'job' here at
the camp takes up most of my time - It's morning here i DK now. If you want
further details - please mail me. Tomorrow is our last day here at the
camp. Sorry for the mess and my English. This is written on a w95 box. My
ISP has some problems accepting chap at high speeds. 

> I  am  looking for input from new users that would be helpful
> in writing Lessons for a Learn interface.
>
> The areas I would be most interested in:

>           i) Having Fun:)

That's no problem. I got a lot of old (and very odd) computer gear from a
couple of local companies. When it was too hot to do computers we went to
the beach. Manuals and learning C  - I'm not a very good C programmer - was
done after dinner. We had a lot of fun. It's no joke that the worlds most
popular program is 'hello, world'. At my job I use ADA. Talk about syntax
and type checking! I really needed an example of how to use ncurses. The
W95 graphic interface has moved a lot of users from text based OS's.  

>          ii) An appraisal of how easy/difficult installation
>              and setup went.

The installation went pretty easy for most of the kids. We made a diskette
with the installation program. That's a great way to do the installation.
We also tried the net installation but I couldn't get it to work - probably
because that the BSD servers were to busy? I had some difficulties with the
different types of disks and disk controllers. As I said it was a lot of
odd hardware! We got 6 386/486 running in two days. I missed lot of ram
modules for the 386 (old type) so most of the machines are 8MB. The 486
which use the 72 pin modules are all with 16MB - one with 32MB. Now we have
15 machines with BSD 2.2.2 and windoze 95 (don't tell Bill) running. The
W95 is needed for playing games. The games that comes with BSD is a problem! 

We started 'make world' before going to the beach or before dinner. The 386
take almost a whole day to compile. The oldest kids sat up most of the
night to see how their make went. There were no installation problems that
I couldn't solve - my luck!

I was very happy for my book for the 2.1.5 version. I only had one printer
and the budget I had to work with was very small. 

>         iii) What areas of operation they found most
>              interesting(cool, neat, narly, whatever).

We have talked a lot about this. I think that the most 'cool' thing was to
assemble all the gear and to find out that we had a working machine after a
lot of hard work. We had a lot of fun trying to see the difference between
W95 and BSD. The W95 is great but it slows down a 386 to a crawl. All the
386 with BSD run a lot faster.  

I have told all the kids that they can write/call me and ask questions and
that I would like some kind of comments of how they think that the camp
project was arranged. Unfortunately there is a lot there don't have access
to the Internet but I'll se them all again in September. They must have got
a lot of experience with BSD then.

All got a CD with the 2.2.2 version with all the doc. and they know how to
contact the BSD questions list. I allowed two of the boys to use my email
account to write some questions to the list. They got a lot of answers. We
were very impressed of the 'service'. I hope that some of the kids can
answer some of the mails at the question list after they have got some
experience with BSD.

>          iv) What goals (in your observations) would would
>              attract new user.

GAMES! That's a real problem. Most of the kids are used to play games. Here
in DK we have a lot of shops where you can pay some money and then play all
the popular games for a couple of hours. The setup for printing is a
problem for a new user. Some kind of menu in the /stand/sysinstall of how
to set up a non-PS printer would be a nice thing. I'm working on this
problem but right now I haven't got the time. Then there is the new feature
with the X system. ALL wants X! I had to setup most of the PC's to use the
vga_mono (very old VGA adapters). Mono worked on all machines. I know that
the X system is not a BSD problem but something has to be done to attract
new users. Some of the kids missed an office pack. The text-based editors
don't attract new users!

>           v) If it doesn't take the fun out of it, a quick
>              overview by the kids, from there experience.

I have tried to get Peter and Niels (the two real freaks) to write down
their experiences but the are afraid of using English. When we meet again
in September I will have some more info for you. This mail is just for
info. I have a lot of other material that I would like to share with the
BSD community.

Btw: How do I join the BSD doc group.
 
Best wishes from a hot a very humid Denmark - Per



Per Eegehauge			mailto:phce@image.dk
Arnestedet 17			mail2:per@decus.dk
DK-2720 Vanloese
Denmark
---------- END Forwarded message ----------

What a great way to introduce newusers to FreeBSD :-)


--
=| Regards,             =| FreeBSD ==> http://www.FreeBSD.org
=| Kevin G. Eliuk       =| "Free at last, free at last, ...."
British Columbia *BSD User Directory ==> http://www.cynic.net




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