I have banged my head around for many hours trying to install 8.10 24098. I found out that I missed some all-important sticky postings in the Installation Issues forum on my first two attempts. After reading those and searching and searching and reading post after post, I figured out the best snapshot to download, the installation step adjustments I need to make, files to edit, leave the KDESudo error dialogue alone, have patience, deal with Nvidia driver, etc., and I think I'm on my way.
I see other newbs posting problems on basic installation issues and letting their frustrations show. Understandably, they meet terse replies about LinuxMCE not being a commercial product and the newb not paying anything for it. You've all put in so many, many hours of hard work and have developed what I think is a great solution. But you have to understand a Newb's position as well. We've all seen various Youtube videos that show how simple LinuxMCE is to install (7.10,) we look at the great features on the website, and then think "I can do it" until we actually try to do it.
I'm an old UNIX developer/admin guy from too many years ago and it all comes back which has helped me a great deal. I want to become a LinuxMCE knowledgeable person to the point where I can contribute where possible. I'm sure other newbs have the best intentions as well.
Here are a few suggestions to make a newb installation a little *better* experience:
1. The download page points to a directory of only 8.10 snapshots and it's not obvious which one to pick. The Snapshot Overview Wiki page answers that question for you, but you have to find that page first. 8.10 is still beta, but 7.10 doesn't appear to be available any longer. How about putting the snapshots into one of three directories - Recommended, bad, trial or something like that?
2. It's not straight forward finding the 8.10 installation instructions. How about a pointer on the download page to that and the Installation Issues forum?
3. Update the DVD section of the 8.10 installation instructions to match the internet download section's corrected steps so that a newb knows what you can expect and what errors should be ignored or left alone. I'm guessing that many of you don't do new installs from the DVDs or know the process by heart. We don't. Also let them know that the scripts may take a long time to run and to not freak out.
4. Either update sources.list to point to old-releases or have a script fix it. Fixing those entries appears to be essential and fixed a lot of my other issues.
You and all of us want LinuxMCE to be successful! Having tough installation issues right from the start leaves a bad taste and makes one wonder about everything else. I know that even the non-developers put in a lot of time finding defects and we would like to get to that point as well.
Thanks for listening!
