Preparations for the technologically inept?

[BeefJerky]

I've been lurking on the boards for a little while and saw fears expressed about people getting the Pandora and being fairly technologically inept and not having a clue about Linux and so on. I imagine the fears are that people may not know exactly what they're getting or that the boards will likely be flooded with repeated questions.

So... from someone who is fairly technologically inept, what preparations are needed beyond reading the boards and the faqs? Does one really require much knowledge of Linux to get applications to work when they come out?

 

[mali]

I've been lurking on the boards for a little while and saw fears expressed about people getting the Pandora and being fairly technologically inept and not having a clue about Linux and so on. I imagine the fears are that people may not know exactly what they're getting or that the boards will likely be flooded with repeated questions.

So... from someone who is fairly technologically inept, what preparations are needed beyond reading the boards and the faqs? Does one really require much knowledge of Linux to get applications to work when they come out?

Don't worry
If there will be something you don't know, just ask. There will be enough members willing to answer your questions

 

[A_Llama]

Does one really require much knowledge of Linux to get applications to work when they come out?

No, you shouldn't need any at all really

 

[BeefJerky]

Cool, thanks guys!

 

[punkrockserfer]

I'm relieved to hear that. When it comes to Windows, I'm no slouch. I know enough to get what I want and need done (except for programming - I looked into that years ago and found it too daunting and time-consuming for me to give up my other hobbies to learn). Unfortunately, when it comes to Linux I am completely ignorant. I certainly hope that I won't struggle with the Pandora. From what I've seen of it, I don't think I'll be spending any free time doing anything non-Pandora related.

 

[Tobriand]

I think the class of technically inept people that many are concerned about are those for whom two tasks in particular come with difficulty - unzipping things, and reading readmes.

Provided you know how to do those, then you'll be fine. There may be other things you need to know, but most of those are fair questions, and everyone here (well... most people here) will be happy to answer them

 

[BeefJerky]

I should be okay then. I'm pretty good with a readme and I positively excel at unzipping files.

 

[reyawn]

One thing we could do is have a way to do a "one-click install" from a Pandora portal so that application developers can have a nice way to distribute and manage their software.

I could imagine it being rather nice to have a small description page associated with the software that could provide insight on it (beyond what currently exists for package managers). Perhaps dependencies could be indicated as well; for example, a particular version of the pandora linux OS build.

Angstrom uses the IPKG packaging format; if we could develop our own one-click application it would be a great way to contribute upstream into Angstrom.