> > By talking of university, is the free software situation as bad in my old > > school ? > > We only had Windows NT, and some old sparc station. > > And some students in a engineer school in France were not happy about > > that situation, ( in their school ). > > not sure about the hardware, but I know one university networking > professor that was running hosting service through the university, to > study the data transfer usage for the graphics communities web sites. > he had 28 sites and was running at 16 gigabytes of data transfer a day. > that says that the hardware couldn't have been that far behind. ( > someone put pirated copy of a movie in the hard drives he was using, the > university shut his study down. It depends of university. Here, in montreal, we have some 2Ghz, with lcd screens. I remeber having begin on 286 in France only 4 years ago, with out hard drive. And my school still run with windows3.1 only 2 years ago
> > If students see that Linux is not 'a black command line for psychotic > > computer freaks', it would change a lot. > > Even teacher don't know linux. I mean, they still believe that vim/emacs > > and gcc. Some still use vi ( have nothing against vi, but vim is far > > better ). This is not their faults, we all discover some new things about > > free software each days.. > > > > Software is not the only probleme, reputation is another one. > > this I believe was what this thread was started to address, how to > change the reputation and lack of information about linux. Yeah, you are right. First, we must see what does ordinary people think of linux. For me, three categories. The ones who knows it, and the ones who don't knows, and the others. The others don't know what is lInux, they don't use computer. I think they don't have any bad opinions of linux, so, it is easier to explain them by talking about he free software and so on. They can as easily use linux for surfing the web as Windows. My best example is my sister. If I didn't had hardware probleme, i would let a linux only computer only, or at least, a dual boot computer ( still lacks of thing such as encyclopedia under linux. there is some web site, but Internet is not unlimited at home :( ). The ones who don't know, just explain, show some articles, and they go into the third category. The ones who already knows, can be,n for me subdivised into sub categories. The one who ever tried, but have good reasons for not using it ( and prefering Windows, or mac ). They may change in the future, and I think we must listen to them. See their needs, try to discuss, and discuss of it. The ones who tried, but not really. Or said they tried. The ones who say that linux s***, and who don't want to change. These kind of people who always say that windows is bad, but don't change. I mean people who can change, not people who don't really know, who are afraid of changing. People who are afraid of changing only need a small help, just someone to refer when they can't figure how to do something. If it don't work for them, ok, they can. People who could try, who says that Windows is s***, but who still use office, because it is cool, because everyone use it, are just stupid sheeps. Sorry to say that, but I don't see what to do for them. So, to summarize my point of view, we need to show linux, to install it around us, in a proper way. For example, using old hardware and some good software ( icewm, abiword, and so on ), you can recycle old computer, it will be useful for some peoples. You can also use the fact that the software are not in english. And be honest. In fact, just read the advocacy howto. and apply it. and, try to promote diversity in school. and around us. Not only Linux, but also mac, and other. If BeOS didn't disappear... Mick
