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On 05/20/2011 04:23 PM, Tom Davies wrote:
<snip>
Hi :)
Ok, i think the pamphlet has been ready for quite a long time now.  It's getting
better but it already was good enough.  Do we need it to be perfect first time?
I don't believe there is any such thing as perfection.


I don't think we need instructions for all the different OSes, especially if the
Dvd is the Windows-only version.  Windows users often need quite a lot of
hand-holding but often linux users are new to linux so they need help too as
they still have bad habits and mis-information left over from their Windows
days.  By contrast Bsd users are likely to already have a lot of unix based
experience and be fairly used to advanced ways of installing, such as compiling
from source.  We don't need to scare or confuse non-Bsd users by explaining
those, especially in a pamphlet for the Windows-only version.  It's enough just
to mention the platform.


Or, going the other way isn't it dangerous to mention non-Windows platforms?  Is
it wise to mention other platforms at all?

Regards from
Devil's Advocate :)
We started with the 3 platform DVD like the German's did with their initial woke. But as things were being discussed about what extension, templates, samples, etc., should be removed or should be added, I started the process of removing all the non-Windows references from a copy of the DVD. There were only 4[?] pages that needed editing and the rest were exactly the same as the 3 platform version. So I ended up doing the work on the Windows-only DVD. I think it may need editing of my edits, but still it was a start while the extension and template pages were being worked on by others.

At events where there are Linux and Mac users, having a 3 platform DVD is proper. For those places that there are a lost of Windows users, having a Windows-only version can be helpful. For those who are going to download an ISO file, and use only Windows, having a 1.4 GB download instead of a 3.2 GB is important.

So for me, at an event table, it would be nice to have side-by-side both versions. For those people that know about the other platforms, knowing that LibreOffice will work on all three major ones can be a selling point, since MSO works on Windows and maybe an after thought on making an older version work on MacOSX. Forget Linux. So if you have someone know that no matter what computers you use, you should be able to use LibreOffice on all of them. Cross platform may be very important to them. For people that do not know anything about Linux or Mac except the name, they may need to have a DVD that only has Windows references on it. They might think cross platform is a good idea, but may not know what it really is or why it is needed since they have never used a non-Windows machine except for their smart phones or e-readers.

To be honest, for may users, the more you tell them about how it works or other technical issues the more confused they can become. Some will even avoid a product that may sound too technical to use or deal with. A lot of Windows users can hardly install a simple package by double-clicking on the .exe file. I know many of these users. Some do not even know how to browse through their hard drives to find a miss-filed document. Some are stumped on how to do anything other than use the Internet browser, the email client, and maybe a simple word processor. So we need to be able to have some document/pamphlet that work work for them. But, the real users of LibreOffice should be those who know a thing or two about their computers or how to use them more than just email and web browsing. So we need our main documentation to work for them.

So, have the main Win/Linux/MacOSX DVD, the Windows-only DVD, and later maybe have a CD or DVD that is geared to the user that does not know how to do much of anything beyond the web. But for now we have the first two, and that is all we really need.

If you need a different platform, then you most likely know much more about using it than we would.

If you need a very simple hand-holding install package, you most likely either not need LibreOffice or have someone that will do the install for you and teach you how to do anything you need to do.

Actually, I kind of like HP's Linux driver system. You run a .run file and ask a few Y/N questions, and then the script does all the downloading, compiling/making, and anything else that is needed to get the printers installed on your version of Linux. I would hate to do all that myself via the terminal, even with detailed instructions. It would be nice if all you had to do was run an .exe file to install any/all of you packages instead of having to use the terminal to type in commands for those packages that you cannot install by double-clicking on the .deb file. But if it was easy as Windows, it may be as faulty/crash-y as Windows can be.



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