WebLinux

[darkrose0510]

This was just a little idea I had a while ago. When someone first hear's about Linux and wants to learn more, or when you're trying to teach someone about Linux, the usual path is to give them, or suggest they download a live CD. That way they can try it out and get the feel of what a Linux desktop is like.
I thought a usefull little introductory tool would be to have a simulated Linux desktop online, that way a Linux newbie could check it out without needing to download anything, or trying to get their PC to boot from CD... it just runs right there in their browser.

Anyway I had some spare time tonight so I had a bit of a play with the idea, have a look at WebLinux to see a rough idea of what I had in mind.

Ideas and suggestions on the site, and general comments about the idea would be most appreciated.

[stubbe]

Neat idea. But what really new user needed is explanations of how to do this, how to do that, where is this, what app for this what app for that etc specially like in windows. Maybe you put the common software selections included in most popular distros in the start menu with some tooltip "this app is for blah like blah in windows"?

Control center could use a deep explanations too, this is very compicated compared to windows' control panel

[devils casper]

i agree with stubbe. your idea is good but newbies asks a lot of questions. include this link or create a list of most common alternative packages. it would be nice if newbies see a list of Windows alternative packages in Linux and everything is free.







casper

[burntfuse]

Newbies definitely need something pointing out what's what. SuSE, for example, is very easy to use, but you've got to know what you're doing first (Windows and OS X are the same way, but people don't notice since they're used to them). Instead of tooltips, there could be little text balloons pointing out useful controls for different screens. For example, as soon as you see the desktop for the first time, there would be a balloon pointing to the main menu button ("Press this button to open the main menu, where you can run programs, browse files, change settings, and search."), one for the middle of the panel ("Any programs you have open will appear here"), and one for the desktop. When you open the main menu, those balloons would go away and there would be a few more, each for a section of the menu ("These menus hold your different programs, organized by type", "Click here to bring up the Control Center, where you can change settings", etc.).

[darkrose0510]

Thanks for the comments so far, as you can see there really isn't alot there at the moment, but I'll work on it as I can.
I figured the 'Talking tux' messages would help explain things as someone looks around the 'desktop'. Although the idea of text balloons on (or pointing to) specific areas certainly makes sense, I shall have to experiment with the idea some.

Some ideas I've thought of for the future;
Get some apps semi-working - like going to the KDE Control Centre and being able change themes, and generally alter the look of the desktop (not too hard to do with stylesheets), or a package tool where the viewer could select from a (short) list of packages and their selected package would then be 'installed' and able to be 'run' from the menu, or a filebrowser that actually lets you look though the Linux file system to see how things are set out.
A version for each of the popular window managers/desktop environments, KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, etc.
Instead of going directly to the desktop when the 'Go to WebLinux' link is clicked, the window opens to the boot process, so the viewer can see a Linux system booting through it's various stages, perhaps with a little explanation of what happens at boot.
Likewise, selecting 'shutdown' from the menu would show the system shutting down, before the window is closed.

Maybe I'm just having delusions of grandeur, and it could end up needing a team of developers like any distro would to get there, but it's something to aim for...

[fingal]

I think it's a good idea. When I started out with Linux I had no idea what a *nix desktop looked like, and a 'walk through' like that would have been very welcome. I like the 'talking Tux' idea too.

[smolloy]

This is a really good idea, and I'm pretty annoyed that I didn't think of it myself It could eventually be one of the many sites that we point newbies to in order to explain various aspects of linux use.

Well done!

[burntfuse]

Just checked out the site, looks good so far (especially the talking Tux).