[frgeek-michiana] VL 4.3 walk through for FB instructors
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 15:57:00 -0500
Jackie, Terry and I examined VL 4.3 from an instructor's POV. Here's what
we found.
1. Desktop mangers
XFCE4 got the nod as best for FB class. The icons are large and colorful.
The fonts consistently render the best. XFCE4 also has the best default
file manager (xffm) for beginners as xfe is no longer in the distro. There
are new window controls which we will need to cover in class. The file
manager features undelete, which is unavoidable and therefore an addition
to class instruction.
The biggest potential problem with XFCE is the desktop settings are too
easy to change for a bullet-proof newbie system. The ease with which users
can change many system and application preferences may generate support
issues which we are not equipped to handle.
2. Floppy disk access
Many FB grads want to copy Abiword files to floppy to take to school or
work. VL 4.3 doesn't allow users access to the floppy; only root has
access. Users cannot mount the floppy or copy files to it. We don't want to
teach root access at the FB class.
Terry, Jackie and I altered /etc/sudoers to allow mounting and unmounting
the floppy drive. Surprisingly, we couldn't resolve the floppy access
problem using chmod and chown. We didn't attack the mtab or fstab configs.
It could be the box we were using has a hinky install and other VL 4.3
installs are good as gold.
Fixing the user (guest) floppy access is a setup issue which needs
resolution at lab before we distribute any of these boxes. Our goal is to
resume classes on April 30, so we have two labs to iron out install and
config difficulties.
3. Test features not taught in class
If any of you have VL 4.3 installed on a box at home or work, please see if
you can replicate and fix the floppy access problem. Pound on XFCE4 to
uncover issues the instructors missed. We won't teach any of this stuff at
the FB classes, but adventuresome users will try features not covered in
class. In the near future we will offer more advanced classes for XFCE4,
ICEwm, fluxbox and the applications installed on VL 3.2 and 4.3. So we have
to deal with problems now.
. dialup confg
. dsl/cable config
. media player
. email clients
. web browsing clients
. instant messaging clients
. cdrecord
Tom
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