Ubuntu

Why is Ubuntu so user unfriendly ?

Asked by Paul Salmon

I have a few points I would like to raise here. From the minute I decided I would like to give Ubuntu a go I have been faced with a wall of technical jargon. I downloaded and burnt the CD but the instruction of the M5SUM check thing was a nightmare - give up on it and loaded the program anyway. For many first timers like myself it was enough to scare users off forever.

I got over that, eventually, and decided to get more involved via the bug watch group. This involved the code of conduct farce. I have yet to get over this problem and why does have to be so difficult, involve typing at the command line etc.

Can someone out there come up with a tick box system to improve the code of conduct signing.

Can downloading, burning and loading Ubuntu be simplified so a five year old can do it.

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Arnaudus (a-lerouzic) said : 		#1

Hi,

1) About the checksum: as far as I know, the checksum thing is primarily for advanced users, and/or to identify the origin of an intallation failure (incomplete download, bad CD burning, etc). You have probably not downloaded your Ubuntu from the official page http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download, which does not mention any checksum, but from a more specialized page. You should identify which official Ubuntu page gave you inadequate information, and suggest the mainteners of the page to explain clearly that the checksum is not a mandatory step in the installation procedure.

2) As far as I can tell, the code of conduct signing is designed for advanced users who are deeply involved in the community. You can perform most of the community actions, like asking questions, reporting bugs etc without signing this code of conduct.

3) Remarks and discussions of this kind should be made on brainstorm: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

Overall, I am surprized that the two difficulties you have experienced were totally unnecessary steps. As a basic user, you should not have encountered such technical information, and it should have made been clear that they were not designed to be followed by you. Providing feedback on brainstorm may help to identify such sources of misunderstanding and clarify the web interface.

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Paul Salmon (paul-salmon65) said : 		#2

Hi Arnaudus,

Thank you for your speedy and interesting reply.

I think you will find that the checksum is very much in the face of the untrained basic user. Please go to the following link - http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and click on "how to burn a CD image".

I studied the "Burning ISO" page and came to the conclusion it was written by someone who was quite at home in the computer science faculty at some university somewhere.

I wrote to the Ubuntu web master, maybe the wrong person and maybe this is the wrong place to raise this also, but I'm learning as I go.

Want to join the Bug Squad - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad - I think you will find that signing of the code of conduct is right there in the middle of the page as a Requirement.

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zvacet (ivicakolic) said : 		#3

You need to check md5sum to be sure you downloaded iso without bad files and errors.It is not that hard to do.Read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM.Even illustrated.
There is nothing wrong with signing CoC.As you said you are beginer in Ubuntu,but that doesn´t mean you don´t have skills for bug fixing.You will know that better then I do.You can halp in many ways.For example you can answer questions here, on ubutu forums,IRC,translating....

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