I just read the article "The Un-Scary Screwdriver" on http://www.gnomejournal.org/article/88/the-un-scary-screwdriver (via http://www.groklaw.net/newsitems.php) and the first part jumped out at me:
--- One early spring day as we were walking home from the bakery on the corner, we passed by a neighbor and struck up a conversation. He complained about his desktop being constantly attacked by viruses. We suggested Ubuntu. A professional man in his 50s, he said he wanted to try installing a Linux distribution on his desktop but that, “it looks too complicated. I probably couldn’t install Ubuntu. I don’t want the hassle.” My little five year old daughter had been snuggled in my arms while I was talking to this neighbor. She had been listening closely. When we got home, she said, “Mom, I can install Ubuntu. I bet I can. Can I try? Can I try?” As a mother who wants to foster her children’s interests in all things technical and scientific, I dropped the loaf of french bread and turned on a nearby desktop. I did a quick back-up and wiped the system. I handed my daughter Anna an install CD and said, “Here you go.” Then I walked away. >From the kitchen, I watched the install unfold. She insert the CD. She read what she could on-screen and pressed Enter a lot. When she couldn’t read something, she called her brother who was only one year older, but who could read a few more words than she could. She yelled, “Jake! Come here and tell me what this says!” Together they figured out, “Hey, if you just press Enter, it usually works out fine.” With a little bit of help from her six year old brother, Anna successfully installed Ubuntu on a desktop. When she was done, I came in and asked, while trying to squelch my pride, “So, sweetie, how did it go?” Anna’s reply, “Easy baceasy! That old foggy is just being silly. I can install Ubuntu, so he can install it too.” --- Specifically the part where the five and six year olds (!!!) say: "if you just press Enter, it usually works out fine" This implies to me that most of the install options in the Live CD should be hidden by default (e.g. by triangles like the command line output is hidden in Synaptic by default, or some other way... tabs? A menu like in the Netbook Remix?) and that as soon as Install is run there can be a button to push to immediately install (e.g. in OEM mode) if the user makes no changes. The user has already picked a language when they started the Live CD, so that's one thing they picked that they can change if they want, but most won't change. If the user is connected to the internet, might it be possible to guess their physical location (e.g. for time zone) by IP address? (http://www.tracemyip.org/ seems to be able to :) as most people will want to install their systems where they are going to use them. For the partitioning step, if there is another OS present, the default option should be to install along side it; if none, use the whole disk. Partitioning is always a scary step, so that should be generally hidden. A look at the pics on http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2009/10/02/ubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala-beta-reviewed-screenshots/ suggests: Step 5 (user name, password, computer name) should be the first step and really the only things that a user should need to fill in... unless there's already an OS on the system that Ubuntu can extract a u/n from :) The bottom of the page should then have a [Review and Install] button leading to what is now Step 6 which will spell out the changes and then an [Install] button at the bottom of that. Thoughts? CK -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss