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Best Live Linux For Christmas Giving?
trustedserf writes "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards. As I'll be making the copies myself I may even change the default desktop background to something personal, or Christmasy before running it off on cheap CD-Rs. The objective is to show people the easiest possible route to using a linux desktop so that they will be: A) Aware and B) Pleasantly surprised. About Christmas they may also have more time to try it out too. Naturally, I'm thinking of Gnoppix, but there are other options.. I use KDE, so I have to decide between it and Gnome. Bearing in mind my objectives, what distro would you choose. Also, importantly, is it possible any of them will damage their hardware (monitors with incorrect refresh etc.) I would be *very* unhappy if that happened. How many of them would fail to boot, leaving a bad impression? Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."
A linux live CD by itself isn't going to get a normal person to run it. You need to put all sorts of easy to run/access games on it, plus Firefox. Then maybe... possibly... someone will actually use it.
I would think twice before doing. Seriously, how many people, whether family or friends, wouldn't think of you as a fanatic or total nerd if you went around giving Linux as a christmas gift.
I would suggest pulling some of your more technically inclined relatives/friends aside, and just show them Linux running on your machine.
this is the dumbest thing i have ever heard of.
My family wouldn't know what "boot from this cd" means. Good luck!
...it's that people hate to be converted and they hate to be preached to. If your friends aren't looking to change their OS then just forget your little crusade because all you're going to do is piss people off.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
I am not a linux guru but from the perspective of the average person go with something that has a simple GUI interface. All that fancy commandline stuff scares people.
I'd hate to be a member of your family, worst gift ever.
Honestly.
Don't give people these discs, unless everyone in your family is a geek no one will even use it or know what to do with it.
Most people who use Windows don't even know how to install that and that's really easy.
This is like a relative trying to convert you to Colgate from Crest....
lame gift.
Give em a linux powered media player or something useful...
What about putting photos and music on it and use it as the card itself...
You're kidding, right?
If one of my relatives tried to use a christmas card to evangelize an operating system, they'd be spending Christmas outside in the barn.
This
I've been trying to figure out a decent gift for my Dad, and I was thinking the new O'reilly Knoppix Hacks book would be a good choice. He used to love computers, but he feels like they've gotten too complex for him, and he's totally frustrated from dealing with Windows virus and spyware issues. The book looks like it's got some good info on dealing with those, plus knoppix might be a fun little toy for him to play with that'd make computers simple again. It'd also let him know a bit about what I've been babbling on and off to them about for years now :-)
The idea of giving them just a CD though? Lame. The CD with some decent instructions tailored to their needs, if they actually have them then maybe you've got something there. I'm personally going to go check the book out in the store before I order it for him.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Well, you could just pop the browser up with the full text of the GPL, and have a dancing RMS elf walk them through gearhead freedom issues that no one but us really care about...
How about... if it were the Christmas card, and you gave instructions on how to boot it, and that it's *safe* and doesn't install anything to their hard drive. Some people might try it out.
Have it boot up, pop open a browser and show some online christmas card that you know is safe.
After that closes, have a stocking or something that says "click me" which is really a folder with a bunch of games in it.
That's more like something someone would want...
People don't know how to boot off a CD. You'll need to include directions for that, and it's difficult, since every BIOS has a different method.
Also, tell people that they should keep it around even if they don't understand it. A friend recently re-imaged her computer (at Dell's recommendation) because some DLL was missing or something. The data on their disk could have been saved with a bootable CD.
A misconception that I've recently heard is that OSS isn't worth anything if you're not a programmer. Not sure how that plays into your card, but it was a new one on me.
Why not give them The OpenCD instead? Non-techies aren't likely to switch to Linux easily, but you can still promote open source by giving them programs they need for their current (Windows) operating system. It's much more likely they'll use this than a Linux distro.
Depends on who you send it to, ofcourse. But make sure in any case it has THE cardgames, not the ones from Gnome, but really, exactly the SAME ones as in Windows. Otherwise it won't do, because they'll be DIFFERENT and therefore BAD. For the rest, have lots of dumb backgrounds with kittens or other cute animals, scarcely dressed women - actresses maybe, some action sport pictures, a car or two and a holiday location that they could never afford, perhaps very cheesy cherubs with corny christmas wishes, that kind of stuff. Don't forget some really heavy mouse cursors, and perhaps a very bomastic start-up sound, followed by santa's voice (linux originated in Finland after all).
That's how people judge an OS, you know.
They'll think it's cool. In fact, they'll think it's so cool they will show it to anyone who comes to visit them. And that's when we'll unexpectedly pull them in on superior security, stability, standards compliance and ofcourse the preemptible kernel...
OK, maybe not, but they'll still think it's a cool demo cd, ho ho.
Why can't people on Slashdot ever just answer the question that's posed? The first thing everyone does is declare that the fact that the question is even being asked it totally ridiculous and how dare the poster be so stupid as to even consider asking it? Can't people just be helpful without being assholes?
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
... give these people whatever you wouldn't mind having them ask you questions about. It sounds like you're setting yourself up to be tech support guy for your christmas card list.
I understand that you are being thoughtfull because you believe that your friends will be better off by running linux instead of windows.
Still, what if you received a bible, coran,scientology book or a Chick Track from a friend that is concerned for your soul. Perhaps even got an AOL CD from a friend that wants you to switch to a "better" service.
Send them something that they like, not something that you think might be good for them. Do not be an evangelist in christmass time. You might have less christmas cards to send next year.
Cheers,
Adolfo
ChristBSD is far superior
Just curious...what's the mascot for this distro ;-)
Buddy Christ obviously. :)
[/OT]On topic, giving something new to someone is always nice, if they're generally interested in what you give them.
I would think carefully about prior conversations about computing - if there were any - and whether or not the recipient of the card has ever expressed any interest in other Operating Systems, or has been using windows or mac os and said,
`There must be something better than this.'
I think the general idea of giving a CD, or mini-CD, of data in a card is a nifty idea, although I'd be careful of giving it to people who might think you're being cheap if you don't follow up with a gift - sometimes just a card is more appreciated than a card and an unwanted gift.
You could give a short movie to people who're interested in things you've done, photos of your holidays to friends who're thinking about where to take their own holidays, and so on, tailoring the content to the recipient.
I'm not sure which distribution you should use, but if I was going to give Linux on a bootable CD to people - who possibly have no real idea what it is or what makes it different to any other software on their computer - then I would systematically download a copy of each latest version of the major CD bootable distributions - or those popular with geeks - burn them to CD, and boot up with each one.
I'd take careful note of each distribution's running performance, hardware detection, general "prettiness"*, and the last factor, how easy it is to install on a computer's hard drive - just in case someone really likes it.
I wouldn't worry about too much about whether Gnome or KDE, Mozilla or Firefox, Open Office or Kwrite as deciding factors because if your friends haven't heard of Linux, or have but don't know anything about it, then how are they going to have a preference for one desktop or program over another?
I'd worry instead about making it look as familiar as possible to their existing desktop, because nothing turns people off software more than having a basic affinity with one thing and then being forced to completely change how they do the same tasks, or perceiving they have to do something different.
That makes it "too hard", and people will generally give up when they think something is "too hard". If they were the sort of person who encountered things that were "too hard" and said, :)
`I can frigging do this!'
Then they'd probably be geeks.
* I'm presuming this is for non-geeks, where appearance is often just as important, if not more, than performance.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
*posting from a Windows XP computer that has never had a virus, from a Windows 2k / XP network that has never had a virus in the approximately eight years it's been running*
You, sir, discredit the open source movement with your fanaticism by making such outlandish statements. Linux is good, but Windows has its advantages, and to not recognize them is to turn people away from your argument.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
One of the rules of gift giving is to never give a pet as a gift. It requires a level of responsibility and commitment that cannot be forced upon a person.
I get the feeling that trying to switch someone to another OS somehow falls under the same etiquette.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
What kind of inconsiderate asshole gives Linux as a *Christmas present* to his non-geek friends and family? This is the worst kind of gift-giving - the kind given for the benefit of the person giving it rather than the pleasure of the recipient. I'm vaguely reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball for her birthday.
Christ, what a bunch of cocks.
I've been a linux user since 95, work with it, code for living and all that, but ...
to go preaching around with it like that? It just sickens me. I mean I go absolutely ballistic with all these jesus-this-jesus-that religious f*ckers. Don't do the same under the linux label, please.
Not to mention, I still don't understand why do we have to assimilate every one of those barely-interested-in-computers to using linux? While admittedly windows still serves them better. My better half has accepted linux, but see it from her that she does it for no other reason than me. And I can only imagine what people like her would think after receiving a freaking live cd for xmas. What some of you guys fail to understand is that they just dont care. They should, but they wont. I mean, I know I should care about politics, but frankly I don't give a rats ass about that either. Getting a political pamphlet as a xmas card from some "friend" of mine would just tick me, nothing else.
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
News for nerds indeed!
I like the idea. Why not try it out and give a report back later? This is what I think will happen: They will ask you the next time you visit what you gave them because it didn't work in their cd-player or computer. You sit down and show them and they will think it's a fun idea.
Then. The next time people in the news mentions Linux, they will say something like: "Yeah! I've tried Linux. I'm up-to-date in this computer-place-thingy-stuff. This intur-newt-thing."
It's fun. It's nerdy. I can't see why all you so called "nerds" are so negative. If it doesn't hurt anybody. Why is this such a bad idea?
Insert `fortune -o` here
The point was not that "gifts which provide you with hours of fun are bad", but rather that "gifts which require more hours of unwanted _work_ and _effort_ on the receiver's side are bad."
Legos or video games are an example of a good gift. They didn't require any unwanted effort from you.
An example of a bad gift, on the other hand, would be if I gave you an XBox game if you don't even own an XBox. And then pestered you to play it. It requires more effort on your side than it required on mine. You get to spend some 150$ on an XBox, whereas I only paid some 50$ for the game. Plus the time spent going to the shop to buy one, etc.
E.g., since you mention a bike, giving a bike to an adult who doesn't already know how to ride one is a bad gift. It requires a lot more effort from them to learn to use it, than it took on your side to carry it out of the shop. And it's unwanted effort: if they wanted a bike, they would have already bought one.
And the bike makes for a good analogy with the Linux CD. It throws someone up a learning curve that they probably didn't want in the first place. To get any use out of it, they have to spend days learning new stuff. Days which they most likely didn't want to spend that way. Definitely not around christmas.
So basically, as was already said, unless you know for sure they're interested in Linux, I'd avoid that kind of a gift.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Audacity
BitTorrent - probably doesn't belong
Blender
FlightGear - along with our local scenery area
Gaim
Gimp
GnuGo - never seen any interest in this (duh)
GTK - for Gimp and Gaim, but it adds confusion
Inkscape - version 0.40 due any day now
Maxima
Mozilla - FireFox and Thunderbird
Mplayer
OpenOffice.org
Python - for the geeky kids
VideoLan
All this crap fits on one CD. I don't usually distribute it in quantity, but it comes in handy rather often. No one wants everything on it, but there is something for everyone. I also include an HTML file that lists descriptions of each program and links to the project web sites. Whenever someone tells me about the "free" copy of some commercial package they have, I just give them the CD and tell them which legally free package to load instead. In some cases, the free version offers something they don't have with the ripped-off one they've been using.
One guy at work actually wanted to stream video over his network at home. I gave him the CD and said "install VideoLan". After some setup issues, he has everything he wanted and is rather happy with it. It really goes over well when you fulfill an need people have.