Suggestions for Sabayon

[davemc]

Great distro guys! You take linux one step closer to the Desktop OS world with this. Here are a few suggestions to actually get it there.

1. Multimedia and Games are #1. These apps are king of the "most used" apps in the world today. Currently, this arena is dominated by MS and the Macs and so Game Dev's tailor to them. There are 2 work-arounds - 1) get every major game label in your hip pocket like MS does so they will start writing Games in Linux friendly codes. 2) Tailor Linux to be more friendly to current Games that only run in XP. Since the #1 is not likely, #2 may be the only option. Linux is doing well in the music, cd, dvd, streaming video arena. Its also doing well in the business application area. But its got little to no development in the Gaming arena, and this hits it pretty hard. Google up a few polls to see what are the most used apps today and I think youll find some pretty shocking results! Computer Games top every list, across every market and age group (save the geriatric). So, tailor SL to become more of a multimedia machine is what I think is needed.

2. Sound and Video. My #1 above cant happen if the persistent multi-tasking issue with ALSA cant be worked out. I believe this issue is with Linux itself and therefor, a very large problem to solve. It will probably have to be a collaborative comunity-wide effort... But it must happen. There are work-arounds for average joe user, but they all involve dual-booting up XP or another OS that can actually do multi-tasking with relative ease. This is an issue that should have been worked out 10 or more years ago, but it persists, and the issue will only get worse as time goes on and MS and Apple continue to evolve, while currently only a small handful of Linux Distro's struggle to catch up.

3. While Sabayon leads the pack when it comes to hardware auto-detection and smooth install on a bleeding edge OS, it remains slaved to an outdated linux build such as Gentoo. SL must seek its own path and break away from this seeking new and innovative ways to program, code, and implement the Linux system in ways that will shatter the MS market's. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most "sensible" would be to take source code from Gentoo and then modify what pieces SL needs, perhaps even implementing slices of Debian and RHL to create something new and even more stable, yet easy for "average joe user" to work with on a day to day basis. Sounds easy to me, but then im just mr. business guy who doesnt know much about code. However, others ~are~ doing just that, or trying to. This will also require marketing, but a good product tends to market itself fairly well. SL currently has the product, and a growing fanbase, so I think this very doable.

4. Tutorials!!! This is sorely lacking in nearly all linux distro's save for PCLos. I just cant stress enough how important desktop Tutorials are for the new Linux user and even the old. What we have now is.. User X installs SL and boots up to a beautiful desktop with all kinds of cool toys, but quickly discovers that things dont work here like they do in XP or Vista which is all User X has ever known his whole life, so he then sits around scratching his head wondering what to do to make things work. Unnacceptable! Although this is no fault of SL, rather, its the fault of the Linux community as a whole. MS is simply more user friendly, and far less time consuming than is Linux right now, and in today's "gotta have it now" world, the "RTFM" response and mentality simply will not do!

--Solution: Bring the help User X needs right to his desktop as he boots up the first time, with all the answers right there popping up in his/her face in the form of automated tutorials full of multimedia! It should tell User X precisely what he/she needs to do, when, how, why, etc.. This will also prevent User X from having to jump onto IRC or these and other forums flooding them with questions that will have to be answered usually by the same people over and over. This is simple common sense guys.

Anyway, thats about it for the first round of suggestions lol. I hope you consider them carefully, because I believe they will make SL supreme in the Desktop OS world.

[Goatee]

part 1:

option1:

The game devs are coming round to it.

option2:

Transgaming cedega, costs money but works

part 2:

use jack more, (opinion, i love jack)

part 3:

no way can we do that we'd need a bigger dev team than cannonical and we have no cash, it's not gonna happen. We can't afford a bin-host. Plus, gentoo rules!

Tutorials, are in the pipeline, if you wanna help, say, we could do with more people to help with documentation.

At some point i fully intend to create a helpfinder that goes through man pages and all that with the user before they go onto the irc and forums. If you wanna help, say!

[davemc]

part 1:

Tutorials, are in the pipeline, if you wanna help, say, we could do with more people to help with documentation.

At some point i fully intend to create a helpfinder that goes through man pages and all that with the user before they go onto the irc and forums. If you wanna help, say!

Be happy to. Its what I currently do anyway.

[Goatee]

excellent!

[davemc]

Goatee, I believe it was you and I who wrestled with that whole jack thing last weekend and, although its a wonderful app, I dont think it was designed with wine apps in mind. Wine is truly a piece of genius but has still a very long way to go before it will be able to really do the window's translation thing for linux. I dont know, maybe when I get like a week off ill spend it working the whole wine app/multi-sound thing (probably something to do with .dll's ??).

-- As far as working the tutorials. I brought this up in IRC and was told to reference the "how-to" section. After having done this, I came to realize that my idea of what needs to be done goes much deeper than that. Sitting around readong some wiki or "how-to" is not the way to entice that new windows junkie, IMO, and most probably wont make it past the first sentence anyway before losing patience and just giving up. What is required here is a tutorial something along the lines of what you see on XP or Vista -- ie, interactive with some form of multimedia presentation. More work, maybe, but how much is making Sabayon mainstream worth to you all? Hard to answer given the fact that this is mostly a volunteer effort. For my part, im willing to try.

[Goatee]

Yes indeed it was davemc

jack, isn't for that i'll admit, although if wine supported it better it would have worked.

Jack, I use it for what it's for, pro audio processing.

I love it for that!

It's not really been integrated into wine it's true to say

Maybe at some point well into the future i'll hack full support in, who knows.

I'll help with odd bits of anything, I can't put regular amounts time in this term if i want to pass my GCSEs (kinda important) there'll be some days when i can do nothing.

But when the exams are done i'll have whole months where i can sit and dev, or get a job, depends on if i live in the real world by then, we'll see.

[davemc]

What im talking about Goatee shouldnt be all that much work. Certainly nothing that cant be done using some simple apps like gimp and a word processor, maybe more if I can find something more suitable. The man pages are there allready along with alot of the source data to cut and paste in and to use whatever is appropriate. Since all were talking about (right now) is creating a nooby tutorial were talking about the absolute fundamental basics of linux... "This is a console [show console], this is what its used for [show example in console], this is what you can do using a console [show more examples], heres WHY you should be familiar with and use one alot [show more examples]."

more examples:

"This is portage [show portage], this is what its for [show what its used for], this is why you use portage [show uses and how it helps], you would use it to do X, and use it when XX"

Who, what, why, when, and how MUST MUST MUST allways be used as the fundamental basis of every "how-to" or tutorial in every case, because to NOT include all of those things would cause the learner (adult learner) to question the validity of what is being taught and also lose interest. Google up Pedagogy and you can find out about the vast amount of research that has gone into these conclusions. Creating training becomes a very easy process when the above guidance is used as the basis for any curriculum.

[Ghost Bird]

I looked here with a mind to say something concerning Gentoo pages.

I have looked at and continue to look at and even have a large number of copied OO writer files of pages I've copied with relevant info from Gentoo Wiki's and other searches concerning Emerge and Portage. I tend to agree with what was said before so no need to write much.

Is there some way, to copy some relevant information about using Portage into a tutorial that is right there on Sabayon without us going online? For one thing, after much reading, which I did a lot before I'd even touch PORTAGE and EMERGE commands. I found how many people still tried an emerge U world.

I now know it doesn't work with Sabayon. For new users it will be daunting. This Distro is aimed right at what users want and it will require some things for 'average' users. I don't know if Gentoo is outdated. I don't think so. Though I'm not a Gentoo user. However, I do wonder if something such as the ability to handle source and RPM's might not be an option. It's just another choice! The more advanced or willing to be more advanced and learn can work more with portage.

The average user, will likely want his RPM's. I did RPM distro's and have my reasons for wanting to try something like a source based distro.

Either that, or will it be necessary to make a better user 'friendly' GUI for portage that does more than Kuroo currently offers?

I'm not a programmer by any means. This type of LinuX definately offers me a BIG BIG learning curve and despite hours and hours reading Gentoo wiki's and other things, I still want to see if I can find a BOOK about this type of distro. There are plenty for RPM distros.

Lastly, as a foreigner in an Asian country, I do my bit for LinuX by trying to introduce it to my students here. I've done pretty well and gotten some interest. I can't give them this because I'm still learning to use it myself. I am giving them RPM distros. I'd love to give them Sabayon.

Some more programs... EVA. A popular client for a Chinese Chat IRC type program

maybe a GUI for Roaring Penguin so the NOOBs can find it. The little plug thing for dsl connection.

well that's it. Some kind of tutorials to explain the differences as there are some in Sabayon and Gentoo. Doing things exactly the Gentoo way from what I read does create problems or a few errors. A newbie could use a few directions to start them out.

This Distro is awesome. I decided it was the one even before I downloaded it just from the images I saw on a walk through.

I think it has potential and I wrote a fellow LinuX newbie here whom I downloaded and burned his RPM distro Cd's for, that I think using source could be a lot better. For 3rd party developers as well.

Looking forward to the growth of this distro. It's worth watching and hope you guys can come up with some modified tutorials or just instructions for new users to ease some of the issues of learning emerge & dealing with masked packages and so forth...

Thanks again for a very good DISTRO. For all your hard work.

[davemc]

Oops! I forgot to add in here that research has also shown that using just one methedology for teaching is ~70% innefective. So, for example, WiKi's that are purely text based. Not to downplay reading in any way, using the "shut up and read" method of teaching is entirely the WRONG way to teach something as vast and complex as an entire operating system such as linux. Research shows that multiple formats would be required here such as demonstrations, video's, pictures, and even the newer methods of interactive AI training where the learner responds to stimuli given by the tutorial (type in this text box, see result). Although just "playing around" in linux can be educational, it can very often be fatal for the system and generate a very negative experience for the user after the system crashes or he/she is unable to get back into Xwindows or kde. Negative reinforcement does have its uses, just none that I can think of when teaching linux. Rather, lets teach the users that linux can be the friendliest and most maleable of any system out there in a positive way that reinforces real learning.

[davemc]

Is there some way, to copy some relevant information about using Portage into a tutorial that is right there on Sabayon without us going online? For one thing, after much reading, which I did a lot before I'd even touch PORTAGE and EMERGE commands. I found how many people still tried an emerge U world.

Yes. Ill do some research and see what types of apps would best serve our evil plan.

I do know of a few windows based apps that do exactly what ive described above such as AIM and a few others I have used in the past when I was in college. I do recall it was easy to use and had loads of multimedia in it which allowed me to make some really nice presentations... Even a few interactive things where all you had to do was setup the parameters for the users and some of the responses they would get when they played with it. It sounds like just what the doctor orders for this... If anyone can think of some useful training apps (for instructional design that is) that are linux based, I sure would appreciate you posting it!