I'm noticing a growing pattern of new users posting to weewx-user along the
lines of "*I know nothing of Linux but I tried to install weewx and it
doesn't work. Will somebody please help me". *
Think we need a "how to report problems" page more tailored to non-Linux
users perhaps. We're seeing a growing percentage of new pi non-unix
non-shell users. That's good of course, but they don't meet the
longstanding minimal user expectations nor will they ever. Many are just
not going to spin up on Linux nor shell etc. They just want to install
weewx and never look at it again. That's ok too.
I also keep thinking about the origin of wee_debug and wonder if it's a bit
too heavyweight for 'initial' problem forensics especially when we try to
get new users to run it when they are not shell type users.
So basically I'm wondering if the default wee_debug output should be
tweaked to be a bit more minimalist and more catered to supporting the
ever-growing set of non-linux-fluent new users.
Some suggestions:
- all verbosity levels include obfuscated weewx.conf in the output.
Mine is over 900 lines long. That's too long for a new user to cut+paste.
Suggest changing the default verbosity to '0' and having that level 'not'
include weewx.conf at all. Add a command-line switch to include
weewx.conf only when explicitly asked for.
- user/pass/key obfuscation isn't perfect, nor can it probably ever be.
I did find one edge case where it failed to filter out some things I had
in commented out lines. Suggest tweaking the obfuscation to not include
commented out lines to at least handle that edge case.
- some users get confused how they installed weewx and do things like
use packages to update when their old installation was setup.py - not quite
sure if that can be prevented, but wee_debug should at least report which
way(s) weewx was installed on the system
- some users get confused re: systemd and whether it's using service
files or init.d backward compatibility. Tougher issue to work, but
wee_debug should report how the startup file is hooked into the init
subsystem
- many (MANY) pi users don't realize that their os does not install and
enable a webserver by default. Wonder if wee_debug can look to at least
see if nginx and/or apache are installed (and running?) on the system.
wee_debug is great stuff, but I'm thinking some minor tweaks might help a
lot in helping us support new users as well as the higher
expertise/initiative folks weewx originally was targeted for.
Thoughts ?
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