What do you recommend to new Ubuntu users for installing software?

[aysiu]

I'm just curious as to what people recommend and why.

Of course, it always depends on the situation, but I would say in general I tend to recommend the monkeyblog tutorial first, as it has screenshots, explains a lot, and is all on one page.

The next one I recommend is my own, the psychocats tutorial, which has no screenshots but tries to explain just about everything I can (with the help of others) in as short a page as possible.

Well, what do you tend to recommend most? Why? Are there other guides I should know about?

http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing.html
http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallingSoftware
http://www.beginningubuntu.com/software_1.html

Do you not do links at all and just explain every time...?

[mostwanted]

I always recommend the monkeyblog tutorial first, as I believe that pictures can help enormously with a user's understanding of how everything works. The screenshots work like bases (yes, a baseball analogy): every time the user "reaches" a screenshot he/she knows he/she is on the right track.

I'm actually experimenting with making some screen captures for the guide to make it even more obvious how everything's done... this is also about testing how far I can take the "unlimited bandwidth" deal I have with my host :p

[Engnome]

Check my signature.

[23meg]

Depends on the needs of the user, which I try to deduct from the content / tone of their post.

[ssam]

had not heard of the moneyblog one before. seems ok, nice pictures.

but the section on the debian menu.

Install the Debian menu. The Debian menu has a much more thorough list of your installed applications, and it will be available as a category in your existing Applications menu. You need to install the package called menu and possibly restart X (ctrl + alt + backspace) for it to show up.

that seems quite irrisponsible to tell the user to press ctrl+alt+backspace, just to refresh the menu. what if they have an unsaved document or there package manager is installing something.

it should either tell the user to log out and back in, or at worst to run killall gnome-panel.

update: i send an email to simon gray about this.

[ubuntu_demon]

I voted other.

I explain it to them or I point them to "my recommended sources.list" thread in which I recently added all the guides.

There's another installation guide here :
http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/ProgramInstallBeginners

[aysiu]

Very interesting... no one uses the book excerpt.

I have no problem with that. I think it's the weakest of the lot.

I knew there had to be some Documentation Storage link, but I just didn't know what it was. Now I do.