Great idea for installation help for technically 0 skilled newbies

[Basher101]

Hello fellow forum users.

I had this idea of helping newbies to install ubuntu. I know that there are plenty of guides out there that explain everything in detail, but if you do not understand anything at all as a newbie even those won't help much.

I usually help my dad with some basic computer stuff over Team Viewer remote control since he lives very afar. He is pretty much hopeless and explaining it dozens of times wont help...so i just Show & tell and he gets it eventually. So i wanted to do the same with newbies (and actually did with one already).

So the newbie i had helped was able to boot from the live USB he made and posted on the forums that he needed help to install. I explained everything but he still could not handle it. So i suggested him that i would do the install for him. I gave him the link to download and install Team Viewer, then took remote control. Then i partition his hard drive, while explaining in gedit what exactly i am doing. Explaining everything i am doing and showing, i got everything set up for the newbie to the part where he had to enter his Username and password. This is alot faster than writing and sureley alot easier to understand once the installation process was shown to you.

what do you think?

edit: this will also make sure that they do not wipe their HDD by mistake..

[Dangertux]

There are a couple of things here. Primarily I think it's a good idea if people are willing to do it. However the two issues I see are -- If a user can't install Ubuntu properly, there may be a chance they can't install team viewer properly. Second issue is -- Allowing someone remote access to your PC could be a trust issue for some users.

All in all I think it's a good idea if it can be made to work, the user asking for help is trusting enough (and your intentions are good which they likely are) and you're willing to do that work for someone else.

[Shaun_Yute]

@Basher101.....I think it is a great idea and I am going to take a look at that remote app.

[Basher101]

@Basher101.....I think it is a great idea and I am going to take a look at that remote app.

It is a very nice program and i use it alot.

As for security, the program generates an ID and a password. The ID stays static, but the password changes every time the program is run. As for the users, they can see everything i am doing. If someone would misuse it they can just hit alt+f4 and close it, terminating the remote access. Also access is impossible if the program is not running and even when it is running, you would still need the newly generated password.