[Foss4g2009] "newbie" section on FOSS4G website?

[Stephen Lead]

Hi Tyler,

I found that even OSGeo.org was a bit confusing - look at it from the
perspective of someone who's never used a free GIS package. Where do you
start?

The home page has extracts of blog posts, which don't mean much if you don't
know the programs they're talking about. The FAQ talks mostly about the
foundation itself, rather than the software available.

It would be great if OSGeo and/or the FOSS4G site had a "getting started"
section which helped new users to get started.

eg, if you need to perform raster processing on Windows, read this. To do
vector processing on Linux, read this. Etc.

If the FOSS4G conference is aimed at people who already know a lot about
FOSS software, my comment isn't applicable. But if it is to be aimed at
newbie users too, I think it needs a brief hand-holding section.

Cheers,
Steve

2009/5/8 Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) <tmitchell at osgeo.org>

> Perhaps just a pointed back to OSGeo.org would be enough?
>
> On 7-May-09, at 5:33 PM, Doug White wrote:
>
>  Steve,
>>
>> I think it's a good idea.  I would say all the software on the LiveDVD is
>> available online in one way or other. There are also websites devoted to
>> this, try a search on sourceforge for GIS or opensourcegis.org, there
>> will be many others sites.
>>
>> http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=GIS
>> http://opensourcegis.org/
>>
>> You can also download LiveDVD images like Arramagong LiveDVD and use them
>> now.
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc#Available_Live_Discs
>>
>> Any getting started section should probably include an outline of getting
>> packages using apt-get or yum for the uninitiated and summary of building
>> from source too.
>>
>> Doug.
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephen Lead wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I'm an experienced GIS user, but I've only ever used commercial GIS
>>> software. I'm intrigued to learn more about free and open source GIS
>>> software but I don't really know where to start.
>>>
>>> I reckon most of my GIS friends would be in the same position as me. Do
>>> you think it's worthwhile putting a "getting started" section on the FOSS4G
>>> website letting us know where to start?
>>>
>>> Eg the conference DVD will include some FOSS GIS software. Is any of it
>>> available online already, and if so where can we download it and start
>>> playing with it before the conference? That way we would have a better idea
>>> of which sessions to attend, and would have a more compelling reason to
>>> attend in the first place.
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Steve
>>> _______________________________________________ Foss4g2009 mailing list
>>> Foss4g2009 at lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/
>>> listinfo/foss4g2009
>>>
>>
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>
>
>
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