From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1FyF57-0000jH-El for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:38:49 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1FyF57-0000ii-0t for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:38:49 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FyF56-0000ib-S1 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:38:48 -0400 Received: from [83.148.189.24] (helo=mxbackup.griffin.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1FyF59-00058j-JX for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:38:51 -0400 Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] No useful documentation. From: Daniel Carrera In-Reply-To: <20060705212524.GA27733@mail.shareable.org> References: <1152133046.8295.85.camel@Agape-desktop> <20060705212524.GA27733@mail.shareable.org> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-a8brdI1KNvHWl4LnN1gj" Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:38:46 +0100 Message-Id: <1152135526.8295.107.camel@Agape-desktop> Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: daniel.carrera@zmsl.com, qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Jamie Lokier Cc: qemu-devel@nongnu.org --=-a8brdI1KNvHWl4LnN1gj Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 2006-05-07 at 22:25 +0100, Jamie Lokier wrote: > Personally I found Qemu astonishingly easy to use, and simply not > needing a lot of documentation to get an OS installed from CD into it. I don't expect it needs a lot of documentation. It is a mistake to think that "good" documentation equals "a lot" of documentation. Indeed, it's often the opposite. Often a 1/2-page tutorial is all that's needed. But if you take that information and scatter it around a 20-page manual, you actually make it more difficult to figure out. One of my favourite sayings: "If I had had more time I would have made it shorter" :) In any event, since you find it so easy to use, could you please tell me how to use it? > Is Windows harder to install in it than some random Linux distro? I can't imagine why it should be. Not, I don't know how to install a generic Linux distro either. Or for that matter, *any* OS at all. I have a program called 'qemu' on my computer and I don't know what to do with it. After reading the "documentation" I don't feel any closer to knowing what to do than before reading it. The only reason why now I have a fair idea of how it works is because someone told me (on a different list). And it only took them 2 sentences. They said that the way qemu works is, you first create a blank disk image and then boot the virtual machine from a CD ROM and install normally. There, that's just one sentence. That's an example of useful documentation, and notice that it's not long. Indeed, it's quite short. To make this complete, all I need now is a command to tell me how to actually boot qemu and point it to both the CD DROM (e.g. the Ubuntu install CD, or the Windows install CD) an my newly-created blank disk image. I should note another thing: Because the problem I'm pointing to is so fundamental, you're much less likely to hear about it. You're not going to hear about it much if the problem is that people can't even get started. You're only going to hear about problems that occur after someone gets started. I notice in your question that you assumed that I knew how to install at least one OS with qemu; I don't. This is an example of "just because nobody complains it doesn't mean that all parachutes are perfect". Cheers, Daniel. --=20 http://opendocumentfellowship.org "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on unreasonable men." -- George Bernard Shaw --=-a8brdI1KNvHWl4LnN1gj Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBErDFmp0IZBOPRtlQRAm8iAKCU1fKQKA4Ft66aIg9u7MrsYtjq1ACgstzP PZSRpTN9wc27rCBfHXQzOaE= =Pn2d -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-a8brdI1KNvHWl4LnN1gj--