[SoaS] SoaS Blueberry Marketing Collateral

[Douglas McClendon]

Sean DALY wrote:
> ok thanks for that Sebastian, so it creates a partition on a hard disk
> with Windows or OSX already installled? That's quite a risky operation
> for any nongeek teacher or parent to do. We need to warn them before
> they click on anything, in our doc. And add a phrase about how backup
> can be done to an external disk.

If you zoom in on the pdf you can see how the very first words 
zyx-liveinstaller presents to the user is currently a very explicit 
warning, suggesting backups, noting alpha status.  Then, after the 
several clicks of choosing destination partitions, another page of loud 
warnings and optional cancel is presented to the user (before any disk 
write is done).

For the full tour of screenshots and user experience, start looking here-

http://filteredperception.org/smiley/stuff/gallery/zyxrli/f11-zli-ss-15.html

It doesn't create any partitions, but does provide a button to launch 
the gparted partitioner so that the user can do that.

This is functionally equivalent to the LiveCD/USB installers that fedora 
and ubuntu (and other) users are very familiar with.  I'd say for this 
release, it is primarily a tool for users already familiar with that 
kind of installation process.

I would expect that 6 months down the road, the warnings can be 
softened, as more documentation is created elsewhere, and people are 
less confused about it because the feature/process has been noted in 
various reviews.

-dmc




> The install barrier is our greatest technical obstacle to Sugar
> adoption. Sugar on a Stick sidesteps that, but what makes non-techies
> willing to try it is our promise of no risk to the existing hard drive
> installation. If we introduce risk, that changes our message, which
> could work, but will require warnings, backup advice and probably a
> scary disclaimer ("use this software at your own risk, Sugar Labs
> accepts no responsibility for data loss...")
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Sebastian Dziallas <sebastian at when.com> wrote:
>> Sean DALY wrote:
>>> OK Douglas please bear with me so that's for installing on additional
>>> blank media (e.g. second USB stick)? No risk to whatever's installed
>>> on the host computer's hard drive?
>> The use case is exactly like I described it: "install Sugar to a computer's
>> hard disk". I'm planning to write more concrete instructions for that on a
>> separate doc, but I could really use a hand and plan to get back to readying
>> the release, soon.
>>
>> For replicating to a second USB key, the recommended way is (tip of the hat
>> to Dave Bauer) something like: sudo livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb xxx
>> /dev/sr0 /dev/sdYZ
>>
>>> Put another way, in a typical classroom case (PC with Windows or Mac
>>> with OSX) what's the benefit? We need to communicate that to teachers
>>> and parents
>> It's basically like: "You used Sugar on a Stick and want to put it on your
>> hard disk while keeping all the changes you made already? Cool!"
>>
>> The procedure then is: Open a terminal and type a command. Launch the
>> partitioner through the interface and create a partition layout (big fat
>> warning should appear). Walk through the rest of the installer by selecting
>> your appropriate partitions. Wait. Once it's done, unplug your USB key and
>> that's it. No need to reboot. You're already using your installed system.
>> After rebooting, everything should work fine, too (tip of the hat to Douglas
>> McClendon for this cool technology).
>>
>> It will also somewhat work in schools, but from what I recall, we agreed not
>> market Blueberry aggressively as entirely deployment ready.
>>
>> --Sebastian
>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>> Sean
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Douglas McClendon
>>> <dmc.sugar at filteredperception.org>  wrote:
>>>> Sean DALY wrote:
>>>>> OK Sebastian this is a great start but they need some work:
>>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>>> * zyx-liveinstaller: AFAIK only for GNU/Linux systems? we need to say
>>>>> that
>>>> zyx-liveinstaller is a program that runs from a booted soas, and installs
>>>> the running soas OS to disk/partition (in traditional 'non-live'
>>>> fashion).
>>>>  No relation or dependence on any other OS.
>>>>
>>>> Though installation to loopback file on an existing linux or windows
>>>> filesystem (instead of a dedicated partition or disk) is a
>>>> straightforward
>>>> enhancement longterm.
>>>>
>>>> -dmc
>>>>
>>>>
>>