Help with Ubuntu Welcome Centre

[musther]

Several people have been working on the Ubuntu Welcome Centre, a graphical introduction to Ubuntu which will load when a new user logs in.

We require help producing and organising content (much of this will come from the documentation project), if you can help, please see:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWelcomeCentre - Welcome Centre main page
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWelcomeCentreContent - Welcome Centre content main page

Thanks-

[Bou]

Several people have been working on the Ubuntu Welcome Centre, a graphical introduction to Ubuntu which will load when a new user logs in.

We require help producing and organising content (much of this will come from the documentation project), if you can help, please see:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWelcomeCentre - Welcome Centre main page
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWelcomeCentreContent - Welcome Centre content main page

Thanks-

I'd like to give a hand, but I have no special computer knowledge or ability. Please let me know if I can contribute somehow.


P.S. I've just read the wiki and this is what I think: too much information. There should be a first welcome centre to explain BASIC features -3 minutes max- and then more advanced features should be explained while installing the system. Maybe some button to show these advanced features WITHOUT installing Ubuntu (kind of a dialog with an "install and learn more things" / "just tell me more" options). Otherwise, the user might be bored.

[Corey]

This is a great idea. It seems like a massive undertaking though. The variety of users of liveCDs are so varied. Some peeps like me are gonna wanna see "whats new in this version" Some peeps may need to have free software explained. Others may be curious as to what linux is exactly and how it came to be. Or more specefically how ubuntu came to be. I think the information should be brief and a quick enjoyable read with perhaps links to or included wikipedia articles that go into much further depth.

[rcarring]

The welcome centre should achieve two things:

html based for ease of updating and release

an option to turn it off, hide it, or "never show again".
#
I'll read the wiki shortly. Thanks

Edit:

We should identify three different types of users --

Windows users

Mac users

Existing Linux/Unix users

The welcome center should not be considered a replacement for the Help Center. We should also examine how other distributions achieve this end, and perhaps consider the Mac OSX "Welcome Center" as well as Windows'

One comment on the scenerios -- the user with dead wifi would not be able to connect to the WWW to access the forum to find out how to fix their wifi, unless their computer had a working modem (dialup) or an ethernet port connection -- in which case why might they be using wifi?

[lzfy]

I can help with artwork if there's any need for it.

[musther]

Can you guys please post comments on the wiki page (at the bottom there's a comments / discussion section). It's great feedback, but it would be useful to have it all in one place. I agree actually, making the Welcome Centre short and snappy is the way to go, give it a large number of links and get it to show the users the main help (which covers most things), the wiki, the forums - as well as info on linux, ubuntu, free software etc...

Cheers

[dvarsam]

Dear "musther",

I visited the pages you suggested!

So, if I understand correctly, you are tryiing to create some Video (with Audio) Tutorials on how to use Ubuntu?

Thanks.

P.S.1> You will need some people with "GOOD" voice to do this!

P.S.2> You will have to start with the English version & then translate only the "audio" to the rest of the world's spoken languages.

[musther]

No, we're not aiming for video, and after the above discussion I'm thinking that we don't even want tutorials, we just want to welcome people and then direct them to the help and the forums, wiki, IRC etc...

[j0217995]

Please involve the doc-team in this so effort is not duplicated.

[musther]

As per the suggestions at the top of this thread I don't think we should really have any documentation in the Welcome Centre, just links to the system documentation and other places together with some friendly welcome blurb.

[mattheweast]

As per the suggestions at the top of this thread I don't think we should really have any documentation in the Welcome Centre, just links to the system documentation and other places together with some friendly welcome blurb.

Hi Musther,

As you're aware this is a Summer of Code project. I just wanted to post to make sure that you're working closely with the student who has been allocated to this project. I'm sure you are but I have seen your activities on the wiki and here on the forum so I wanted to make sure that they student is happy with a high level of community contribution this early in the project (I know that so far he hasn't had much of an opportunity to speak with his mentor about the project).

Apart from this, I'd say that I approve of a design which is well integrated with the system documentation. You may even wish to work directly on Yelp and see if there are some customisations that you can make to it. Please work closely with the Documentation Team because they can help.

Matt

[Burgundavia]

Just wanted to second Matthews message. We would love for you to come and work with us on the content, either on IRC or our mailing list.

Corey

[ghee22]

Hello,

I am the student working on this project. It has come to my attention that this Ubuntu Welcome Center is becoming a very small project. I would like to do an additional project as well.

Someone on the wiki has posted a seperate project for what my original goals for the welcome center were. Here's a quote:
A multimedia 'getting starting' shwoing basic tasks in GPLFlash etc, sounds like a good idea, but it's rather different from what's going on here, I suggest you start a wiki page for it, something like ?MultimediaGuide (just a suggestion).

I would like people to contribute to this wiki page as well.

[musther]

I think that's a very good way for it to go, it seems natural for thisto be two projects, they're similar, but different. I'm just going to look at that second wiki page now.

[jaymode]

I would be willing to help out with this also. Not sure if I could be of a lot of help skills wise, I mainly know C++ and a little java.

[j0217995]

I'm a little confused here.... Do we have two projects working, one for the Summer of Code and one started seperatly? Sorry can't figure out how things are looking here :)

[ghee22]

I'm a little confused here.... Do we have two projects working, one for the Summer of Code and one started seperatly? Sorry can't figure out how things are looking here :)

I will be doing both projects for Summer of Code My goal is to have both completed. This is a very tough goal from the original one i had (just the video/audio tutorials) but since others have been pitching in, I feel with their help, it is a reasonable goal.

There is a deadline coming up:
June 30, 2006: - All mid-program evaluations of student progress due by 17:00 Pacific Daylight Time

Hence, I would like to complete one spec by Wednesday night, which would allow me to code like a trained monkey for 2 weeks straight to have something to show for.

This doesn't mean we haven't made any progress, yet. Planning is key to finishing, and we are almost done with this stage.

Thanks everyone for your significant input!

[joelbryan]

I have created my version of UWC last April-May 2006, it it supposed to be passed to SoC 2006, but just got late on student registration.

See my deb file.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/joelbryan?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntu-welcome-center_0.1-1_i386.deb

[dvarsam]

Please consider including the following to the "Ubuntu Welcome Centre":

Read the following Thread please:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=197026

A part of the above thread is listed below:

You bring up a great and important point. I never knew there wasn't an official hardware requirement page. You might want to post it as a suggestion here http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=192695 That's a thread about the new welcome center for Edgy Eft. A hardware "compatability or basic requirement area" should be included in the Ubuntu introduction/welcome area. It's basic knowledge you need. Isn't it?

Basically:
We need a Hardware ("Basic") Requirement Area for all Ubuntu OS versions!

Thanks.

[rado_london]

Hi people. This my biggest suggestion for Edgy so very good someone created it! I am not good with anything multimedia involved but I am open to give away ideas for improving the project. I can also get my parents to test it as they are basically newbies.

[musther]

In reply to dvarsam, we do need a requirements page, and it needs to be more complicated than just a list of requirements, for example I would say that for a good snappy Ubuntu experience you need a PIII 750mhz with 200mb RAM and 4gb disk space (although disk space is largely optional). However Ubuntu will run (and be quite usable) on a fair bit less than that. Then I think the page should suggest alternatives such as xubuntu for a slower machine.

This is beside the point as the welcome centre is not a very good place for this because it will be visible either after the user has already installed Ubuntu or when they are using the live CD. A better place would be somewhere on the website so the user sees it when they are thinking about downloading Ubuntu.

I would suggest creating one of the following pages:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Requirements
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SystemRequirements
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MinimumRequirements
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SysReq
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MinReq

I think the first one is best! :D

[kb3hkg]

I agree, system requirements should be online and not in the welcome centre. It might be a good idea to list requirements dor ubuntu/edubuntu, and xubuntu seperately. Kubuntu as well if it's requirements are different enough from ubuntu.