Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
Hello, Part of the problem seems to be that we may not do a good job of passing on the knowledge and understanding necessary to allow users to help themselves. I don't know if you want user feedback on this thread but here goes... I started playing with Linaro about a year ago coming from an OpenEmbedded and direct cross-compilation background. The most challenging part of the learning curve has been moving from the 'Hey, I downloaded something and look it works' (Linaro does a brilliant job of making this really easy) to 'hmm...I want to change something but there is all this packaging in the way'. For me, this typically means I want to test a change to the kernel or u-boot for Overo. Moving from the standard compile-and-stick-on-a-microSD-card to the method of making debian packages (and understanding the implications of not doing so) was a learning curve. Not all users want to change the kernel but helping users learn to customize the Linaro deliverables (specify specific packages in an image, rebuild packages with different options...) seems important. Other notes: I have heard of other users getting confused by hardware packs---I actually thought this was well-explained but again struggled trying to build my own. Two pages that I keep bookmarked are * https://wiki.linaro.org/Resources/HowTo * https://wiki.linaro.org/CategoryHowTo (because sometimes I need that magic tip on some page that isn't listed above) as I usually know roughly what I wish to do but need an example of how to do it 'a la linaro'. Cheers, -Ash ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
For now Linaro is focused on Ubuntu and Android. Why not get some people from Gentoo, Arch, and Fedora/redhat to get something generic ? And some LAVA for all ? ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
I think this would be worthwhile session. Coming from Gentoo, one thing we always put time into was our documentation. It was/is generally goal based and smoke tested. As an example, it's a worthwhile exercise to bring someone into the picture who is completely unfamiliar with your area. Give them a goal and point them at the wiki page(s) you think address the issue. If they are able to accomplish the task without help great, if not, the help you needed to give is what should have been in the document in the first place. It's too bad our wiki pages don't have a feedback mechanism to allow people to comment on the quality of the information there, and post problems/issues/questions left unanswered that they need. Regards, Tom On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Dave Martin dave.mar...@linaro.org wrote: Hi all, Over recent months I've had a steady stream of comments from external people trying to use the Linaro deliverables about the difficulty of getting started, understanding what Linaro produces and how to use it. My experience with supporting users is that using and making sense of the linaro output is often not nearly as easy as we would like to believe. Part of the problem seems to be that we may not do a good job of passing on the knowledge and understanding necessary to allow users to help themselves. Is it worth a session at Linaro Connect to discuss how we could improve the situation? This probably falls in the community area. Key things to discuss might be: * identifying and understanding our audience * providing the missing manual (what knowledge do we tend to assume in linaro that our audience may lack) * wiki ownership and maintenance (how do we _manage_ the information we produce to maximise its relevance and usefulness) (This includes identifying stale/obsolete information, removing duplicates and providing useful indices, contents lists and introductory material.) Ideally, we should get some users external to linaro to attend and/or provide input. Cheers ---Dave ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev -- Regards, Tom We want great men who, when fortune frowns will not be discouraged. - Colonel Henry Knox Linaro.org │ Open source software for ARM SoCs w) tom.gall att linaro.org w) tom_gall att vnet.ibm.com h) tom_gall att mac.com ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
On 27 September 2011 20:42, Tom Gall tom.g...@linaro.org wrote: It's too bad our wiki pages don't have a feedback mechanism to allow people to comment on the quality of the information there, and post problems/issues/questions left unanswered that they need. You can fill bugs on linaro-documentation: https://launchpad.net/linaro-documentation https://bugs.launchpad.net/linaro-documentation ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
On 09/27/2011 01:19 PM, Fathi Boudra wrote: On 27 September 2011 20:42, Tom Gall tom.g...@linaro.org wrote: It's too bad our wiki pages don't have a feedback mechanism to allow people to comment on the quality of the information there, and post problems/issues/questions left unanswered that they need. You can fill bugs on linaro-documentation: https://launchpad.net/linaro-documentation https://bugs.launchpad.net/linaro-documentation Also - we can add commenting ability to our wiki: http://moinmo.in/MacroMarket/MoinComments I'll take a look at prototyping. ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
Re: Making it easier for Linaro users to help themselves
On 09/27/2011 11:57 AM, Dave Martin wrote: Hi all, Over recent months I've had a steady stream of comments from external people trying to use the Linaro deliverables about the difficulty of getting started, understanding what Linaro produces and how to use it. My experience with supporting users is that using and making sense of the linaro output is often not nearly as easy as we would like to believe. Part of the problem seems to be that we may not do a good job of passing on the knowledge and understanding necessary to allow users to help themselves. Is it worth a session at Linaro Connect to discuss how we could improve the situation? This probably falls in the community area. Michael was just discussing doing a community session in Orlando. So I think this fits well with what he had in mind. Dave - In the meantime, please feel free to contact Michael and myself with specific problems you've encountered. We are very interested in making any improvements. ___ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
