MX Linux Forum

I was just musing about Ideas for a "Quick Start" document https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 8+document, and I've had an idea.

The problem with documents is quite a few people don't do the reading, therefore the simplest things can be overlooked. As an example, I've seen numerous YouTube reviewers baffled when it comes to moving the panel from the left even though MX Tweaks makes this a simple job. Here's what happens when I see this

So how do you eliminate the need for a document, but give people the knowledge required to set up MX?



Create an MX Setup tool and have a link to it displayed on the MX welcome screen (it could replace MX Tweak). The tool itself would be a simple program that uses the terminal for display and user interaction.

Here's a very basic idea for what would be displayed in the terminal:
Using the up / down arrows would allow the selection of what you want to do, a highlighted [*] would indicate what is selected.

Pressing enter opens the selected tool, e.g.

Set display configuration opens the tool to configure screen settings.
Configure firewall opens the firewall tool
Set theme, panel position, button preferences, compositor, etc. opens MX Tweak
Set up Conky opens MX Conky
Set wallpaper opens desktop setup tool
Configure audio CD / DVD playback opens the tool which manages removable drives

etc. etc.

The list can be as long and detailed as is required.

Mathinks this would enable someone who is brand new to Linux to fully configure MX in next to no time.

The basic tenant of consulting is: "you can't help those, who won't be helped..." There is nothing you or anyone can do if people won't read, view, bother to understand what is already provided.

That's the bad news....

The good news is that none of the problem is anyone but their's to solve...

I'm for providing tools but I'm against dumbing things down, the options are available in MX Tweaks and in other tools, there's a manual... not my problem if people don't read it. How do you think that presenting stuff in terminal would be any better than providing GUI tools and a big "Welcome" app that pops up at the beginning and displays useful apps and a link to the manual?

@adrian.... I don't think this distro misses much in terms of info.; I think the information here is abundant, easy to understand... and if people choose not to avail themselves of it, well then they can ask questions in the forums. The sarcastic part of me says, we should reserve the right to point and giggle if... oh, never mind.

One of the best things about MX-Linux is the balance they maintain when it comes to newbie-friendliness. You still have to be a responsible user and apply a little thoughtful consideration to maintaining / changing / tweaking your OS. It's not dumbed down in MX, it's just available to responsible users in a nice, easily understood GUI. This from a technophobe, too!

For beginners MX ships a good basic configuration. Beginners see a Desktop, can work with it without the understanding of complex configuration details. This is the intention of MX, I think and I like it. When users want to reconfigure things they can use MX Tools but it's not needed for the start and that's the point.

I like post-install, but only for software, not for configuration things. RPM-based Distros have an installer for select software packages to install. That's a great feature but it's not possible on Debian based distros so far.

Not even Winders comes with a config like this.. it would be a cool thing for the REALLY not computer savvy.

However.. when you decide to move to linux there is a bit more than a basic understanding going on; those really not computer savvy don't even know there is something other than windows after all. And in that light those who DO come over SHOULD have some inkling of "Ok, I don't know about this, but I better read up or otherwise ask nicely."

There are also those gimmegimmegimmenow and youmadethisyoufixforme.. ehmm.. I don't think it is too bad that they end up leaving

MX is fine as its current conception, modify for those who do not research in the forum or do not read the Manual would not do better. I was a novice for many years and committed many stupidities for not reading the manual or asking in the distribution forum. I learned a lot in Mint in their forum in Spanish and to do a little research with Google.

Maybe for the users who don't want to look around and just want a replacement for Windows it would be easier, if the panel was at the bottom instead of left. However, I personally really liked this left-hand panel right at the beginning.

Why? With most screens getting larger anything at the top or bottom just takes away precious space. On the left or right there's often plenty of unused areas.

@colin_b:
I get the need to make things easy for new users, but I belive that there's no need for the menu you suggested. It's a good idea, but redundant in MX (at least it's my opinion).
MX is already the most newbie oriented distro (I'm talking about stuff like changing the bar location and such) as most people can get (at least according to my experience)...
Creating a terminal "menu" would be easy to do (hell, probably even I can do it after googling a bit about scripts) but would be a turn off for most people that are used to point and click menus. People that are used to the terminal or using the keyboard to make selections usually are not in need of such "menus". Newbies presented with a text menu would think "is this the dark ages?"
Most of what you suggest is already available from the MX search bar. People can treat it like a search engine for everything they want to do on their system. If they want to change their desktop wallpaper, they can type "desktop", if they need to setup the firewall, "firewall", "conky" and so on... No need to read instructions of look hard in the menus...
I had some ideas for a quick start help file but I'm also aware that most people don't read that, or read it once and then forget about most of what it said
One example of people not paying attention do details that make their life easy can be found on https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mx-linux- ... ternative/ . It's a very good review about MX that recommends it for people coming from Windows. I had the first "problem" they mention there: I'm used to the bar location on the bottom... Instead of just using the option that has the clearest icon ever created (the symbol of the bar on the left, then an arrow then the bar on the bottom), they did it by hand, which can be a bit scary to someone used to Windows treating them like babies.
(A have a confession to make- the first time I tried MX live I did exactly the same thing, did it the hard way. Why? Because I was used to do it like that, I knew how to do that, coming to previous XFCE experience than offered no other way to do that...)
So should MX offer a new menu?, or complicate the install menu and tell people: "hey, if you are a windows user and and want to have the bar in the bottom like you are used to, check this box"! Or should MX offer a clearly visible icon on the first run that does exactly that? The only useful suggestion I could offer about this is change the icon's title from "Tweak" to "Tweak (bar position, etc.)" or something like that, for the people that are less visual and/or think the icon does not do what it suggests (because they may be afraid of "tweaking" the system and think just changing a bar location is not really tweaking).

Happy holidays, everyone!

P.