Re: My brain dump (i.e. our marketing plan)

[Erik Hemdal <ehemdal townisp com>]

If this post is out of place, please forgive me.

> >      * Marketing via a LiveCD - developer's don't find this terribly
> >        useful, but its a great marketing tool. Now, we need to leverage
> >        pushing this towards being done. 
> >    
>
> Oh, this is essential.  Anyone who says it's not useful in many ways is
> not on this planet and should be ignored for this subject. ;-P
>
> I know there are technical hurdles and the like, and it must include a
> usable OO.o.  Knoppix STD works great for me personally, but I *know* I
> could convert people if I could just boot Fedora Core on their machines
> in a non-destructive manner.  At US$.015 a live CD, that's some cheap
> propaganda.
>
> - Karsten
>  
>
>  
I'd like to second Karsten's words on this one.  I use Fedora in a 
variety of classes, and I hit newbie questions all the time.  Here are 
some big issues:

-- Lack of time to download four or more CD images, burn them, and 
resolve any IDE DMA false failures in mediacheck.
-- Fear of corrupting a work PC/laptop/home computer that would be hard 
to do without.
-- Residual fear of "blowing up the monitor".  A surprising number of 
people I meet have heard such horror stories from long ago.
-- General inability to gain ground and sort through installation 
issues.  If you have never seen a UNIX system or Linux before, trying to 
navigate through anaconda and (especially) Disk Druid is pretty baffling. 

When I started out, I saw a lot of people who had some UNIX experience, 
and who wanted to learn (basically) how close Linux comes to behaving 
like their venerable OS.  But now, more and more I find students who 
have never ever seen a UNIX system.  They want to learn Linux, but 
without exposure to UNIX, many concepts are quite foreign.

A live CD for Fedora can help new users avoid a lot of complexity and 
frustration while they learn the basics.  I'd love it.

Erik