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Conectiva Linux 9 Review

Posted by michael on from the linux-down-under dept.

JigSaw writes "Here's an english review of a popular Linux distro in the Latin American countries: Conectiva Linux 9. Jason Prince investigates its installation, the desktop usage, the package manager (synaptic) and some of the problems he met on the way."

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Not that easy to intruduce a new OS by gnuman99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    For example, in Vietnam something like 90-95% of all people use non-legal version of Windows. MS revenues there are somewhere in the 100M range (mostly from gov't). BUT, almost no one heard of Linux!!

    No matter how good Linux is and how bad Windows is, people first have to know what Linux is. Once Desktop adoption in any country is over 10% or so, then it is a very slippery slope for MS. That is one reason why they are fighting so hard to keep >99% or so of the i386 desktop.

    1. Re:Not that easy to intruduce a new OS by spiritraveller · · Score: 5, Insightful
      So true... this is probably why they don't try harder to combat piracy in Southeast Asia.

      Whenever they do, governments and corporations start examining Linux more closely.

      As long as people copy Windows and Office, they think they are getting something good for free, and they will want to use the same software at work.

      The best thing that could happen to Linux would be Microsoft cracking down hard on piracy and provoking governments and companies to switch to FOSS software to avoid legal hassles. But those same companies would still have to overcome the inertia of their employees who have grown up using pirated copies of Microsoft applications... of course, the same applies to the West.

    2. Re:Not that easy to intruduce a new OS by i_should_be_working · · Score: 5, Insightful

      agreed,

      the only reason i started paying attention to linux was cause i was like 'hey, free (as in beer) software'. it wasn't until later that i started thinking about (and supporting) the open source idea.

      in my lab we have lots of windows software that is free (to us students) cause we either have a site licence or it's pirated. and i still have a hard time explaining to my lab partners why i bother with linux when i can get windows for free.

      i recently got one lab partner to try openoffice, and my main selling point was that she wouldn't have to worry about microsoft killing her OS because she had a pirated version of MS Office.

  2. Re:Yet another KDE based distribution... by Majix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sun's "Java Desktop System" is a GNOME only Linux distro. Then there's some fringe ones, like Gnoppix and Progeny IIRC.

    I don't think any distro of importance is GNOME or KDE only at this point, which is good. Hopefully after a few more years of Freedesktop.org cooperation the whole point will be moot and most will be using the best KDE (K3B, Kdevelop etc.) and GNOME (Evolution, Gimp etc.), software on a hardware compositioned X all jimmied together in some kind of nutty bouillabaisse with Mono thrown in for the hell of it.

    I'm guessing Novell/SuSE will be one of the first, since they're now such a strange combination of KDE (SuSE) and GNOME (Ximian) people and neither faction is likely to back down.