Re: Barriers to Entry, how do we knock them down?

* Aaron Hilton (videogamer_at_shaw.ca) wrote:
> I found installing OPIE for the first time was a huge challenge. How do
> we make this a non-issue for the new guys?
>
> These are my oppinions, please take these ideas with a grain of salt and
> a lot of imagination. I'm willing to help out with programming these
> variouse things, but I'm very inexperienced with the Qt environment and
> especially with cross-compiling development. I am slowly working my way
> into it, with hopefully a big boost this week when I dive right into Qt
> for a research project in my full time. :)
>
> In my oppinion, we could really use an installation as close to one
> click as possible, with zero click maintenance, so non-techie users can
> setup and use it.
>
> The most important barriers to entry are:
> 1) Too many warning, leaving newby users guessing.
> 2) dependency on serial to setup the flash.
> 3) command line know-how.
> 4) usb networking setup.
>
> I'll go into more detail about each:
> 1) Too many warning, leaving newby users guessing.
> There are TONNS of warnings on all the installation tutorials, about
> how installing the boot loader can brick your device. While this is
> good for covering our asses, it deters many people from even trying.
> Installation should be simple, rock solid, and in worst cases have
> recoverable fallbacks.

Leave the warnings in there, screwing up on the boot loader
installation can turn your iPaq into a brick. Compaq Research Labs
has graciously offered to fix these bricked iPaqs, but we should
make sure people pay close attention so that they dont have to.
>
> 2) dependency on serial to setup the flash.
> Most people don't have the 31137 hacker skilz to modify their usb
> cradle into a serial device, or want to bother purchasing a serial cable
> for an experiment. The bootloader desperately needs USB support. Here's

USB has some great advantages, it's a whole lot faster and is the
default cradle. My question would be, how much does it increase the
size of the bootloader? With many ipaqs only having 16 meg of flash
( opie can be a very tight fit), I wouldnt want to make the
bootloader any larger than we can. Either way, the bootloader is out
of the realm of opie, You'd probably find more help on the ipaq
mailing list ( http://handhelds.org/email_lists.html ).

> 3) command line know-how.
> IMHO, I believe requiring command line setup/configuration is too much
> to ask of new users who have never seen such a thing before. There are
> certainly quite a few people that don't mind learning command line
> usage, however this provides one of the most significant barriers to
> entry for new users. Lets keep the main line installation and operation
> away from commandline, but still accessible for the more advanced users.

I think this could be done by providing familiar images with opie
already set up. I think someone has actually put some togother using
busy box, although I dont know where. This is also sounds similar
to how OpenZaurus distributes their images.

> 4) usb networking setup.
> For my first attempt at setting up the usb networking, I was pretty
> stumped. Just about everyone has USB these days, and it offers
> extremely convenient plug&play setup and usability for things that
> support it. For the new-user linux community perhaps we should provide
> a nice convenient DEB and RPM for usbnet setup and auto pointopoint
> configuration. Hotplug is extremely useful with OPIE, and now Mandrake
> supports HotPlug, is there some way to put 2 and 2 together?
> For other environments, I think there are already efforts to make USB
> networking plug&play ready.

USB network is a major pita, any improvement here would be greatly
appreciated. New releases ( maybe in unstable) of familiar are supposed
to have improved usbnet support. One of the sticky problems of
usbnet dying after a suspensions has also been addressed:
http://handhelds.org/z/wiki/Setting%20Up%20USB%20Networking%20to%20Survive%20Suspension

        Greg
Received on Fri May 17 2002 - 15:44:32 EDT