I hope these comments help

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skinner36
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I hope these comments help

Post by skinner36 »

Hi everyone,

I am going to be a little critical here but hopefully my comments will assist your project in some way and not be taken in a negative manner. Please be concious of the fact that these comments are meant to be taken in a constructive manner.

I believe that people involved in this project are concientious, work very hard and are dedicated to trying to make it a success. The idea is great, and where Linux appears fractured (too many flavours) this project has a single purpose in mind, which I like.

A big problem I have found with the project though is that it appears way too difficult for new people to offer help, and please bear in mind that I am no computer newby as I have programmed and done Windows systems support for the past 20 years.

In my humble opinion, you need a clear and concise path that shows new visitors to you site that if you follow path A, B, C, D... to you will assist testing. Following path G, H, I.. will assist documentation. Etc.

For the past week or so I have been trying quite hard to offer my assistance without a lot of luck. I have used irc (which I am a newby at) and spoken to very helpful people who suggested I contact a particular developer. I sent a PM to the developer and I was told to subscribe to the irc channel and talk to developers there.

I'm nearly at a point now where what was started as an interesting exercise is now starting to grow hairs and is getting a little bit too hard.

I think You need an obvious and organised contact point for new helpers that clearly point them in the right direction. I hate to think how many potential helpers you may have lost.

I realise some people will flame me for these comments, and that is OK. They are meant in a constructive manner to assist your project.

Regards

John
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

Your comments are justified, with varying degrees. Getting in touch with devs on specific parts of the project can be very difficult. What are you specifically trying to offer help on?

One of the more annoying problems is the devs themselves don't often follow the guidelines they voted on, be it coding or whatever.

The website will be getting a revamp in a few days, or it's supposed to. I've started moving things around a bit but I'm waiting so far to for the revamp to be completed. Work through the intermediaries like me, Jaix, Colin, etc, if you're feeling frustrated with the IRC.
Ged
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Post by Ged »

Hi skinner36, what do you need help with?
skinner36
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Post by skinner36 »

Hi Ged and Z98

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read my post.


In my experience where testing is involved, debugging or code testing items are given a priority level. What I was trying to find out on this project was which items or issues are highest on the priority level, In opinion (and it's not necessarily the right one) I should be looking at these first.

Or on the other hand test what is more important to a developer.

E.g I might get more enjoyment out of testing an area of game playing in a game project but the part of the program that installs the game, that no one enjoys testing, needs to be checked first because without the installation routines the installation is not done correctly.

I hope I have made myself clear here. When I read it back it sounds a bit convoluted. If not, let me know and I will try again

Regrads

John
GreyGhost
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Post by GreyGhost »

Yeah ..we need something like a "Newbie beginners guide ." that would be really helpfull..
Regards GreyGhost
skinner36
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Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by skinner36 »

Very much agreed. I also want to make it very clear to anyone that reads this thread that i am in no way canning this project. I think it's a really good idea, but like most good ideas, they can still be improved upon and I would like to see you retain as many good helpers as possible.
GreyGhost
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Post by GreyGhost »

Hehe .. suggestions are always welcome :D
I would try and work on the beginner guide myself but i remain pretty busy with college nad studies and stuff.. i hardly even get to test ROS these days.. :( but i'll try and help out at bits if possible ..
Regards GreyGhost
Ged
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Post by Ged »

we have this in the wiki : http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/H ... troduction

however, as discussed in IRC we need to improve things on the testing front.
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

Encoded has a nice little Qemu GUI, though it requires .NET. But I've found it to be very useful. Once I can get a link from him, I'll be modifying that beginner's guide to show how to get debugging with it. That should make things quite a bit easier for certain beginners.
Ged
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Post by Ged »

Z98 wrote:Encoded has a nice little Qemu GUI...
I assume it's the one in our reposity, written by greatlord and Christoph.

A much better alternative is the qemu manager: http://www.davereyn.co.uk
It was written in Delphi so doesn't require the .NET framework
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

I've used both, but I prefer encoded's. It's far more simplistic in many regards. Ultimately, it's up to the user whether they even want any kind of GUI for QEMU, but options are always good. And relying on .NET isn't exactly an issue in my opinion.
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betaluva
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Post by betaluva »

sorry to butt in but i have to agree with everything skinner36 posted, as for qemu,give me a gui anyday!
GreyGhost
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Post by GreyGhost »

I still prefer the CLI .. ;)
Regards GreyGhost
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