[Speakers] Transitional/Introductory Presentations

[Bruce Smith]

> > 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 presentation focusing on YAST might be a good topic for one of the
four.  Mostly covering the portions that a home user needs to know.  

> 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).

Explaining the equivalent of things in Windows terms is good.  i.e.  We
should cover a little about the "root" user, along with mentioning it is
like the Windows "Administrator" account.

> 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?

I'd say the system should be already booted at the login prompt.  Most
modern distros boot with just a splash screen, and our projector can't
show the boot screen due to the changing monitor frequencies anyway.

 - BS