As I have announced on the [haiku] general mailing list, my intent is to go forward with a creative and exciting project for my senior thesis at college. I wish to create a series of tutorial videos that demonstrate the Haiku operating system to everyone, particularly to beginners, in a way that is easy to understand and to follow, yet very informative. I need some ideas and suggestions from the whole community so that I will be able to gauge what sort of content I should cover and how it should be delivered. The following are things I am looking for, but don’t limit yourself to this list here! Anything goes! I want this to be a successful project that everyone can benefit from.
Since you were all new to Haiku once, what things about Haiku were confusing to you as a beginner? What should be clarified more for those just getting their feet wet with this operating system?
Would you like videos that contrast popular OSes like Windows and Mac OS X to Haiku? Or would you rather talk about the OS purely from its own merits without bringing to mention any other OSes?
What categories about the OS (Multimedia-centric, symmetrical multiprocessing demos, etc) would you like covered? Should I get into some technical detail or avoid that altogether and assume the viewer to not know anything about that?
Should I give a video that shows someone trying the OS who has never seen it or used it in his or her life? Maybe it will help the faint of heart who watch it feel more willing to try it if the newbie was able to figure it out just fine.
These are just a few icebreakers. Please contribute anything you might find useful to this project in terms of ideas, comments and suggestions. Thank you everyone and I hope to commence on this project in the very-near future!
Satsujinka… keep in mind that I intend for this tutorial series to become part of the official help portal for Haiku, Inc… I want to champion this OS as a result to show how useful it is to the common man with enthusiasm. Otherwise, what is the point to the human element?
Whatever you do, don’t compare Haiku to other OSes. For whatever reason people get emotionally attached to their OS and telling them that their OS isn’t as good is the same as telling them they aren’t as good.
Anyways, what I would do is show how Haiku allows you to get stuff done. So surfing the internet, writing up a document, watching video, making video or audio, etc. Then just let Haiku show off how good it is, no need to comment on it, Haiku doesn’t need you to champion it. Just lend Haiku your voice.
First this I think it should be done in a “Haiku for Dummy” way. I spend some time watching and asking end users what annoys them about computers. Most of them say that I just want to set it up and use it. They do not care how it is done nor have time Googleing around (some do not even know how to narrow Google searches) for answers. So I think it would be great to create www.haiku-tutotails.org with documents and links to YouTube videos. I think FAQ is great for some people but as they say picture is worth a 1000 words
Detail installation (Haiku is becoming known for its simplicity)
a. simple one partition installation
b. multi partition installation
c. Installing additional packages and removing them (how to uninstall them)
Configuration
a. Screen, Network, etc (Get idea from FAQ what people are asking the most)
d. maintenance of any kind
Thanks for the tips oxoocoffee. As for Network… the WiFi setup is gonna be a very hard sell since it uses a command-line to configure the network, which is very unintuitive. Hopefully someone can slap together a UI on top of the setwep utility for ease of connecting wirelessly.
If this goes ahead, a new promotional/demo video would be good. Just to show people who haven’t heard of Haiku what it can do, and how much faster it is. Also, some of the nifty little tricks, like the filesystem, and searching.
Perhaps I should rephrase what I said. When I say Haiku can champion itself, I mean that it’s speed is obvious. People will see that without having to be told. Telling them what they can already see will only insult them. In my opinion, what people want is a system that works; so you have to show them that Haiku works. Perhaps my statement “Just lend Haiku your voice” was a little misleading; what I meant was for you to bring the publicity, not say “well Haiku is great because…” and then give a list.
For a first tutorial, perhaps you could demonstrate how to create a live usb. To show that it works then, boot Haiku and check your email or facebook or something that people do all the time. Don’t show people how to set up internet yet, wait till that materializes. If people ask you can tell them, but it shouldn’t be part of the first tutorial. Following tutorials should focus on getting things done.
The first thing to determine is the audience for the videos. Like R1 itself, I’d say it’s for the more technically inclined user, maybe hobby coder, who has tried another OS before (maybe went from XP to Linux).
So, the background story could be some slightly geeky guy (-> Serenity action figure besides the monitor ) gets an email from his college buddy to try out this fun little open source OS.
Then you take it from there: visit the web site, download the image, burn a CD or write on a USB stick, installation, first boot-up. Then follow the guy exploring Haiku piece by piece, at the beginning noting the differences to his other OS.
There could even be some problems that he solves with the help of Haiku’s nice community via IRC or the forum
With regard to the topics themselves and what to show: If at all possible, you should focus on the stuff and the apps that seem to be release ready. For example, it wouldn’t make much sense in showing how to access a WEP encrypted wifi network via “setwep”. Before R1 is out we’ll (hopefully) have a nice netwok panel that takes care of all that. Also the Locale and Shortcut prefs aren’t ready yet.
So your target should be R1 as well. That may mean that you’ll shoot some things out of order, like configuration of the system.
Personally, I think most people would want good text documentation, but if you think videos would be useful, here’s some suggestions:
Quick intro on how to get Haiku up and run on the system (ready for dev work).
Point to where the dev tools are, and how to compile and make a basic application.
Also, a third suggestion:
How about a video highlighting all of the special/different aspects about how Haiku’s UI works. I’m not thinking about a tutorial here, but something for people who can use the OS already, but maybe want to know about the little differences/features real quick.
My vote is for a UI video too. Just yesterday I learnt something new about the UI and I gave been using BeOS from the 3.0 days.
I notice that a lot of the people coming to BeOS/Haiku seem to have problems because the UI does a number of things differently from other desktops.
Windows navigation seems to be the big one to me. Software installation is another. Also the inverse - how to de-install a driver. Others include editting the kernel/vesa files, creating links, preferences and for me personally - how to use the icon editor.
Nice! I had no idea that link existed. Thanks for pointing me out to some various tutorial information. This will help with crafting the video production as well.
Intro to basic system functions:
Browsing file systems
Customizing the UI
Searching for files
Running apps
Playing music/videos
Etc These are for people learning to use Haiku
Haiku also needs several sexy Intro videos. "Did you know you can do X, Y, and Z in Haiku?" These are to get people interested in Haiku
The sexy videos would be like advertisements for Haiku. They would have polished production, better scripting. Maybe we use a celebrity female
Sexy videos eh? Hmm, I think I might be able to swing that. Dunno about the celebrity female.
Anyhow, I hope to begin in mid-June, once I get my camera and any other equipment I will need for this tutorial. Thank you all for your help with the ideas.
Aldeck recently commented that using a camera to capture the screen is working quite well. Even if BeScreenCapture works (it does with the alpha, doesn’t with a current nightly), the result shows major tearing if you move windows around. Capturing a virtual installation won’t show Haiku’s snappiness accurately…
Maybe we can pressure Stefano to fix BeScreenCapture…
I think the most important feature to highlight in a Haiku “advertisement” is control and simplicity. Haiku doesn’t waste your time doing things it thinks you want it to do. You are in control.
I think the most important topic for new users is “window management”. Window management in Haiku is a little different than in other operating systems, and if other users are like me, they will quickly end up with many windows open.
Here is an example of items to explain.
Using the Desk Bar
Starting an application
The window “Close” button
The window “Resize” button
Right clicking a window border
Double clicking a window border
Using Workspaces
Double clicking a Tracker “separator” (resize column)
Right click “drill down” menu in Tracker
I think all that’s necessary for that is something like a screen cast of someone using Haiku with (fun) dialog explaining it.
