Sveinn ? Felli wrote: > But for a new (potential) linux user there are other issues > which may be critical, I'm gonna raise a couple here: > > #1 Number of users -->Access to help/tips/information. > Some distros are so marginal that info on "normal" usage of > the distro may be scarse. Some distros are even so marginal > that a newbie gets really a personal guidance from qualified > enthusiasts. Quality (of information) is not equal to > quantity, bigger userbase tends to have more solutions > available to problems. VL does not seem to have easily > obtainable info on many issues, unless you ask the right > questions in the forums (my personal impression).
I must disagree with your personal impression. There is plenty of information available for a VectorLinux user. If you participated in the forum for any length of time, you'd see that every question gets answered. Sometimes nobody knows the answer, or suggested solutions don't work for a particular user. This is true for all Linux distros. But nobody's question gets ignored and because many of us read every message posted, you don't have to ask "the right" question. The VectorLinux forum (http://www.forum.vectorlinux.com) has well over 100 "how to's" posted that can answer many user questions without the need to post on the forum. New how-to contributions are always welcome and will be posted if they pass inspection (nobody wants wrong information to be posted). There are an additional 34 forum sections arranged by general topic and if someone can't find a solution in how-to's, they can post in a section (you have to sign up for forum membership in order to post; you won't get any spam and can hide your e-mail address and other identity issues). The forum search engine is not very good, but an advanced Google search limited to forum.vectorlinux.com will usually turn up anything relevant. On the CD burned from the ISO there is a detailed manual describing how to install and use the system. There are screen shots of the text installation. A more recent online manual includes screen shots and a step-by-step guide to the graphical installer. It's at http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/docs/vl60/manuals/vl6_installation_guide_en.html . Most things a new user might wonder about are described in detail in these manuals. They cover much more than just installing. In addition, at http://www.opensourcebistro.com there are numerous video tutorials on all aspects of installing and using VectorLinux. This site is operated by one of our forum members and he is continually adding tutorials. This is a wonderful resource and it makes things easy for the newbiest of newbies. Because VectorLinux is not hacked as much as distros like Ubuntu or Mandriva or Fedora, general Linux solutions are likely to work if someone comes up empty at the above three sources. So I must disagree that "VL does not seem to have easily obtainable info on many issues." On the contrary--info on many issues is abundant and very easily obtainable. > #2 Localization -->Language support. > Some distros are better than others in supporting "foreign" > languages, not only how well their package customizations > are translated, but also how UTF-8 and RTL support are > implemented. I've had to dump several distos (e.g. > PCLinuxOS) due to such issues (garbled characters in samba > etc.). This of course matters to users "from the rest of the > world" - curiously the distros not paying much attention to > l10n are american-based (PCLinuxOS seems to be Texan, VL is > theoretically Canadian). I have not had to deal with this issue, but VectorLinux does have users all over the world and some run it in their language. I know localization is a work in progress and is not where we want it to be. There are entries on localization in the how-to's, this one in particular: http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=8331.msg56717#msg56717 Follow the links and also read the comments at http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/01/making-slackware-and-derivativ.html I can't comment more on localization because it's not something I know much about except that users do have VectorLinux running in other languages. I don't know how many other languages or what happens with Samba. I don't think there is such a thing as "the right distro for everyone" in Linux. That's why we have so many! --Judy M. USA Registered Linux User #397786 Being productive with VectorLinux 6.0 Standard, Deluxe Edition
