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"."

Comments

Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Knoppix MAME then.

Re:Stuff it with games

[nwbvt]

I'm sorry, but if you are giving these to "normal people", you might as well just be giving them coasters, as that is what they will end up as.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

I got an AOL 9 disk for christmas last year from my cousin. Needless to say he's getting a present from my cat's litterbox this year.

Re:Stuff it with games

[barc0001]

Did you even READ the sumitter's question? "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards.",
He's giving it out in his Xmas cards which generally are just a card and a signature, perhaps a "Seasons' Greetings" or something scrawled in there as well. This is added value over and above a simple card. At no point was the submitter suggesting that this was in lieu of "real" presents. This instead seems to be an added bonus for his acquaintances that would otherwise just be getting the $0.25 card mailed to them. Sounds fine to me.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Yaztromo]

It also fits on a mini CD-R, so it can be kept in a pocket. Might want to consider sending a card with one of those inside it.

One thing to note here is that if you use mini CD-Rs and are sending to non-technical people, do them a favour and add a note that they shouldn't use the disc in a slot-loading drive. Most slot-loading drives (mostly found on laptops) can't handle these discs, where they jam and can damage the drive.

There's nothing worse than getting a gift that forces you to send your laptop in for repair.

Yaz.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Shaper_pmp]

Yo, bad-asshat, step down off that high horse and think carefully about all that self-righteousness before idiot-casting it to all and sundry, eh?

Somebody's been taking too many marketing classes. "Added value"? What, exactly, is the "added value" of something that's free to begin with?

Well, you know... there's the added value of not having to download the entire distro. And the added value of not having to find and burn a CD. And the added value of not having to take the time to research and worry about choosing the right linux installation to start playing with. Note that (flamebait!) all these are issues which have so far stopped me running my own Linux box, and I'm an IT-literate user on broadband who's actually quite curious about Linux. If you allow for the fact that most family & friends aren't, you get the added value of not having to learn how to download distros, not having to learn how to burn CDs, not having to go out and buy CD-Rs (you'd be amazed how many people own CD-R drives but no CD-Rs). As I said, I'm Linux-curious, but haven't had the time/energy to run my own box. If a mate handed me a pre-set-up CD that was guaranteed to work, no questions asked, I'd try it out tomorrow. No, tonight.

What is this guy actually trying to do?... basically force-feeding it to individual people who are apparently your friends and family...

Christ almighty. He's sticking a free CD in a card, not anally violating them while pouring sugar in their gastank. Get some perspective, really.

It's one thing to say to someone you know and like, "hey, you know this thing Linux? Well, it does the same things as Windows, only better, and it's free, so you should download it."

Funnily enough, I find that approach more irritating, opinionated and unhelpful than simply burning me off a CD and going "here y' go... have a look if you're interested". You're basically instructing them as to how great Linux is, then instructing them to do all the learning and work themselves. He's doing all the work himself, and offering me the chance to try Linux risk-, effort- and pressure-free.

They probably won't, but the next step is not to basically get all up in their face and say "HEY. I TOLD YOU TO DOWNLOAD IT AND YOU DIDN'T SO NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE BECAUSE HERE'S A CHRISTMAS CARD FULL OF LINUX." Honestly, even as someone who runs Linux, I'd be borderline offended by this.

Ok, I'm going to explain something to you now. The reason people probably don't respond well to your approach? It's probably because you lecture them on the benefits of Linux, then leave them to go do all the hard work themselves. Family != nerds. Friends != geeks. Make it as easy as possible, and they'll do it. Lecture then abandon them, and don't be surprised if nobody takes a blind bit of notice.

I guess my concern is that this guy is doing this more for himself than for the people he's giving these cards to, out of a misguided sense of altruism.

Ok, this is just ludicrous. If he's doing it out of altruism (even "misguided"), he can't by definition be doing it "more for himself". Look up the definition of altrusim if you don't believe me:

Altruism: altruism (n.)
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

He's not "adding value" by giving people something they can get themselves just as easily. I mean unless he knows a whole bunch of people stuck on dial-up connections that asked him to do this, which I guess is possible but pretty unlikely.

Ah. Oh. Ah. I apologise. I was under the impression we were talking about family, and friends. I didn't realise we were talking about died-in-the-wool linux geeks. I mean, my 90-year-old granny's a Debian admi

Re:Stuff it with games

[digitalgiblet]

I'm guessing his name is Albert Orville Lewis, and he always signs his cards with his initials: AOL. Man I've been getting this guy's CDs for YEARS.

best?

[Anonymous Coward]

windows-xp-professional-with-keygen.iso

other alternatives to Live CDs

[Ingolfke]

I'd skip the Linux live CD and give a charitable donation to The Human Fund instead. It's much more meaningful.

Re:other alternatives to Live CDs

[mordors9]

Yeah, I can remember anxiously opening up a card from a relative when I was younger. This Aunt was always good for a check for $20. What do I find but a card that says she donated to some charity in my name. Not sure if meaningful was the word that sprung to mind.

Think Again

[comwiz56]

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.

Re:Think Again

[King_TJ]

Actually, it seems to me like it all depends.... I've had several relatives and family friends ask me quite a bit about "that whole Linux thing", pretty much out of the blue, after they realized I'm still working in the computer industry.

There's a fair bit of curiousity out there from people who've heard about these cheaper/free alternatives to Windows for their computers. Something they can run as easily as sticking a disc in a drive might be just the thing for them to take a first-hand peek at it.

Much really depends on how many of your family members/relatives already enjoy using a computer. In my direct family, practically nobody does. My mother uses the same PC I put together for her and gave her as an Xmas gift about 6 years ago - and she still struggles to remember exactly how she's supposed to check her email, print it out, and write replies to people. Honestly, she just hasn't been willing to put in the time it would take to get comfortable with using the few programs she wants to use.

Re:Think Again

[IntelliTubbie]

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.

Seriously ... this reminds me of people who push their favorite book on everyone as a "gift," and then constantly harass them if they haven't read it yet. Rule of thumb: any gift that requires less effort to give than to receive isn't much of a gift at all.

Cheers,
IT

Re:Think Again

[fireboy1919]

I think the poster is talking about sending it along with cards.

So this isn't something you give out to your close friends and family. This is a gift you give out to people you just know well enough for a card.

It does have a message with it. It subtley indicates that the sender knows something about Linux and wants other people to as well.

If you want to make a living in Linux, think of it as a form of networking (the human kind, not the computer kind).

Re:Think Again

[Lord Kano]

About 11 years ago, I got so sick of my relatives getting me clothes for Christmas that I declared that if anyone every got me clothes again, I'd reward when with an NRA membership next Christmas.

I have a family full of Democrats, I never got clothes from them again.

LK

Re:Think Again

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Democrat who hunts...
Can I have your address? I have a lovely cardigan that you *must* see.

you must be the tech guy in your family

[terrymaster69]

My family wouldn't know what "boot from this cd" means. Good luck!

Re:you must be the tech guy in your family

[bcrowell]

Yeah, and consider how incredibly slow these things run -- well, slow on the latest hardware, and slower than slow on somewhat older hardware. They're just going to think, "Oh yeah, Linux, I tried that, and it was slower than snail poop."

Re:you must be the tech guy in your family

[Ratbert42]

The only way I could get any of my in-laws to run it would be to send it to them in a fake email that says they need to run it to secure their bank account password.

Mepis

[Kyouryuu]

Mepis Linux is another good choice. It's also very easy to install to the hard drive if they are impressed with the LiveCD version. It's also just one CD. http://www.mepis.org

If there's one thing I know...

[Chess_the_cat]

...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.

Set the Firefox default home page

[xmas2003]

Another nifty customization would be to set the Firefox Home Page to something personal and/or Christmas'ie so they are reminded again of your gift (cool idea) when they fire up the browser.

And the 2004 uber Dork award goes to...

[HockeyPuck]

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...

Re:Wow

[MeanMF]

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.

...and the ones that are geeks will already know where to get it if they want it.

What does linux have to do with Christmas

[voidptr]

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.

Knoppix Hacks

[krmt]

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.

Re:Mandrake

[Mycroft_VIII]

I wish I could second this (I rather liked Mandrake during the late 8.x and 0.x series), but Mandrake's live cd has failed to work on both systems I've tried it on.
I went throught this before with, IIRC, mandrake 6.x series and 7.x.
This time I suspect it doesn't like my video card* (can't find screen when trying to start X), but with the earlier distro's I would always get a divide by 0 error, and that on four or five machines in a row.
It seems odd they have so much trouble with building a bootloader/installer that can't recover from such errors, in the first case div by zero is simply a very bad sign, and in the second shouldn't it switch to generic vga or even text mode?
My current video card is a Radeon AIW-9600 and was used on both systems as the second try occured after a significant upgrade (new mb,ram,case optical drives and floppy+media reader only hd's,video,audio and powersuply were kept), given the issues surrounding drivers on any recent video card (especialy radeons) it doesn't suprise me X had issues, it does suprise me mandrake didn't think of it.
Well I still have the old mb (nforce2) and case and can probably borrow my brother old nvidia card so I'll likely try again when I turn that into a backup system.
Though if anyone knows how to get it working on my curent system (A8V delux asus mb, 1G ram, Atholon64 3500+, SB Live platinum, and Radeon AIW-9600) I'd listen. but this is someone elses ask slashdot, and to be honest I didn't really dig or try much beyond booting the livecd and watching it crash.

Mycroft

Re:There is a good point to be made from this

[Tough Love]

The people that say that this smacks of conversion and fanaticalism are correct.

See, given your comments below, that's why you need the CD.

What about a seriously generic Linux distro where a newbie like myself could put it in his CD drive, it would boot into some sort of DOS like equivelant where it would ask some simple questions about partioning and formatting the drive, then 20 minutes later it would finish the install and boot me up to a GUI desktop with video drivers installed (well generic ones at least), sound drivers installed and firefox installed.

I've got news for you, the CD's we are talking about here go way beyond that. It's basically just put it in your CD drive and 1 minute later it's up and running a full GUI with your browser connected to the internet and solitaire ready to play. Not to mention having a _full_ office suit ready to use.

Still think it's not something you want to find in your XMas stocking?

Buy them a Mac

[Romeozulu]

Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."

Buy them a Mac

What about free bibles or AOL cds

[adolfojp]

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

A comment to the whole thread

[zarkzervo]

I'm surprised at how many here say things like: "That's geeky!" and "That's a stupid idea!"

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?