[Speakers] Transitional/Introductory Presentations

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> > We are first looking to collaberately produce an outline or topic sketch
> > for these four - five presentations, and then move forward fleshing
> > these out into real presentations.
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > We are hoping that this list can serve as a forum to develop these
> > presentations;  so if you have any ideas or thoughts about what these
> > presentations should include please step forward now...
> In my experience, a new user presentation should consist of the GUI side
> of _using_ Linux.  Not the underlying system, how it works, nor the
> command line.

Agree, focus on the GUI tools is good.  In part because the GUI tools
are now "good" and they used to be utter crap.  I've been using LINUX
since 0.99a but these days I do most of my admin via Yast.

> A long time ago we used to have a intro to Linux that focused on the
> history of Unix, the filesystem structure, command line and such.  

Yes, I recall this.  It sucked.

> I assumed the system was installed and running.  

Yes.  We are not covering INSTALLING but using and basic [requisite]
administration.

> I simply gave them a
> tour of the desktop.  Here's how you sign in.  Here's your web browser.
> Here's your email.  Here's your word processor (see how much it looks
> like M$ Word!).  Here's how to play MP3's.  Here's how you shut down.

Yep, that should certainly be the content of one presentation.

> We can also mention the advantages of Linux (stability, cost, etc.),
> but let's not dwell on them.  

Right, that is boring and well known.

> The newbies probably already know that,
> otherwise they wouldn't be here.  

Yep.

> But it's worth mentioning so we can
> field questions about the truthfulness of those stories they've heard.
> Let's teach newbies how to USE Linux, not bore them with details about
> who invented Unix, Linus's childhood, and what files are in /usr ....
> We can do that crap on the other 3 meetings of the month!  :-)

I think some brief segways into certain topics are worth while.  One
could explain runlevels in a single slide after mentioning boot-up and
how-to-shutdown.  This way they've seen the term.  I think getting over
the terminology hump is a big one for people coming from windows (in my
experience;  it is the windows terminology that seems weird to me).

So do you start the presentation series with booting up and logging in?
Which might be a reasonable approach.  Or somewhere else;  from more of
a view-from-4000-feet perspective?  Thoughts?