[Koha] Live DVD (Was: Master-password (katikoan) and Live-DVD

[Jared Camins-Esakov]

Lars,

Unfortunately they often give up, before they really get started. Therefore
> I want to make the entry level as low as anyway possible. The live DVD is a
> wonderful way to make more people use Koha. The people that I am dealing
> with are typically having small school-libraries (with max 10.000 items).
> They have never been working at a terminal (not even in Windows).
>

This is definitely a problem. However...


> Suggesting that they should make a manual installation of Koha - because
> that is better in the long term, is pure theory without ANY connection to
> reality. It simply will not happen. The only thing you may accomplish that
> way, is preventing them from using Koha.


This would be unfortunate. However, there is another side to the coin,
which is why the developers are practically unanimous in condemning using
live cds in production: using the live cd in production (*production* not
"for testing," which is a different beast) is going to result in people
being dissatisfied with Koha, in a "Koha sucks I hate it way" rather than a
"well, that was too hard so I guess Koha isn't right for me" sort of way. I
would prefer neither be the case, of course, but if I have to choose, I'll
go with option B every time.

When someone sends a message to the mailing list, they are saying, in
effect "I want several hundred people to donate their free time in order to
solve my problem." And we're happy to do it. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother
reading the e-mail. However, things change a bit when you've installed the
system in a way that very few (or none) of the developers does. We can't
help you. That's all there is to it. Any time I see an e-mail that says "I
am using the live cd," I say "oh, well, no point in reading further." And I
don't. For proof, consider the fact that I have no idea what the question
that started this thread was, despite having opened the message. The reason
I ignore the e-mail is because any advice I might try to offer will almost
certainly be wrong and counter-productive. I want to help. Above all, I
want people to be happy using Koha, and that's just not going to happen if
they're using it in an unusual way.

That said, I think a live cd is a great idea, absolutely perfect for
testing, demoing, and generally seeing what the big deal about this "Koha"
thing is. I've recommended it to many people for just that purpose. But if
you run a small library, and you run into a problem that takes your ILS
down, you need to know that someone can fix it, regardless how small your
budget is. If you want that someone to be someone other than you (the
general you, not Lars, obviously), that is absolutely legitimate. There are
vendors. If you want to rely on the kindness of strangers (keeping in mind,
of course, that strangers may not have time to help in the middle of finals
week when you have 400 students asking you why the OPAC doesn't work
anymore), that's fine too. What's a problem is when you want to rely on the
kindness of strangers, even though none of the strangers are willing to
help with the system you've set up.

This will be my final contribution to this thread, but one thing I am
missed when I skimmed through it (when the conversation is busy enough,
eventually I'll get curious and actually read live cd-related messages) was
a clear explanation of why a live cd in production is a problem not just in
a theoretical sense but also in a "strongly connected to reality" sense.

Regards,
Jared

P.S. My cat would like to say the following: "           vcb cd34
                             "

-- 
Jared Camins-Esakov
Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC
(phone) +1 (917) 727-3445
(e-mail) jcamins at cpbibliography.com
(web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/