Slashdot Mirror
Introducing GNU/Linux Via Applications
An anonymous reader writes "A common problem with GNU/Linux for new users is not the operating system, but the switch in applications they must undertake to use it. Many who try to make the switch have little experience with the common open source applications available under GNU/Linux. The Kutztown GNU/Linux User Group, in Pennsylvania, is helping to change that on a large scale by distributing open source applications to faculty on Microsoft Windows machines first. Instead of selling GNU/Linux, the group is selling open source. Faculty at the school have been provided discs containing a number of popular open source applications compatible with Windows as part of a larger program to get more users to consider switching operating systems."
This is a good idea. Instead of alienating users, they can make them more familiar with the benefits of open-source while letting them keep the OS they know how to use. Wow, a first post. I never thought I'd make it.
I enjoy giving away copies of the OpenCD. It contains a lot of common open source programs that run under Microsoft Windows.
When KDE 4 is released, many of its apps will be compiled for windows. There are some of them like amarok and k3b that are the best in their class, including closed source ones, and there are others that are as good as the closed sourced ones like krita, krusader, scribus, kivio and some others.
When they are available for windows, and if you also consider firefox, thunderbird and openoffice you will be able to run a windows system with most of the applications open sourced.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
We handed out CDs with Windows versions of FOSS apps. If people find that they can do their jobs just fine with those apps instead of Windows-only apps, then the OS doesn't matter to them anymore. Then Ubuntu came along with a combo live CD and Windows installer for several FOSS apps as an added bonus, so we've settled on that as our new sampler. I do get a kick out of the fact that Kubuntu has Firefox for Windows on the CD, but not for Linux. (Not that synaptic can't add it in a hurry.)
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Off-topic, I know, but is there any reason the author consistently refers to "GNU/Linux" rather than Linux?
to give to people interested in Open Source.
They are nicely packaged, have a CD with some art on there, etcetera.
Personally, I think nothing looks as cheap (in a bad way) or shadier than a burnt CD-R especially with permanent marker on there.
Is there any place that sells Open Source CDs or makes low runs of CDs with professional art at a low price?
Otherwise I may looking into a lightscribe burner - it look a little better.
If you convince people that the free open source apps really are as good as or better than the proprietary garbage that MS (among others) forces down there throats, and get them using it on a regular basis, then there will be nothing tying them to Windows. For most people, what holds them back from switching off Windows to something that's more stable and secure isn't that it dosn't come pre-installed, it's that they don't know how to use any of the apps all of us that use Linux take for granted. If you had someone that uses OOo, FF, The GIMP, and Amarok on a regular basis under XP, then went in and installed something like Kubuntu over night with all the same apps, they'd probably barely even notice.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Actually: http://www.theopencd.org/
For the past few semesters, I've been handing out copies at the "campus groups on display" day, and the reception has been quite positive.
I hope you are being funny, but if you are not, I will explain. or even if you are, in case someone else wants to know.
The assertion is that it should be called GNU/Linux because Linux depends on GNU for userspace, build tools, et cetera.
This was once true, but is actually not true any more.
Debian is explicitly called Debian GNU/Linux for this reason. Debian is pretty much the gnuest (but not the newest, ha ha) distribution out there. It has higher ideals than any other Linux that I'm aware of; read the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) for more information.
Richard Stallman has written a whiny diatribe on the subject entitled Linux and the GNU Project. Here is an excerpt:
"What they found was no accident--it was the not-quite-complete GNU system. The available free software added up to a complete system because the GNU Project had been working since 1984 to make one. In the The GNU Manifesto we set forth the goal of developing a free Unix-like system, called GNU. The Initial Announcement of the GNU Project also outlines some of the original plans for the GNU system. By the time Linux was written, GNU was almost finished."
GNU was almost finished? Yeah, except for the lack of a useful kernel. When the HURD finally came out it was extraordinarily limited for an operating system of its day, including a lack of support for filesystems over 2GB.
You may have noticed that I have no sympathy for the view of forcing people to call it GNU/Linux. Why not? Because it's inconsistent. As per the terms of the GPL I am free to fork GCC and call it something entirely different that has nothing to do with GNU. No one is trying to take anything away from GNU or the FSF by calling various Linux distributions Linux. No one is trying to hide the fact that the majority of systems (but again, not all!) are based on or built with the GNU userland. They are only apparently not giving GNU sufficient credit. If GNU needs more credit, that should have been in the license. If it's not worth putting in the license, then shut up already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They failed because M$ punished those that dared to sell a bare machine. I tried to buy several machines without W98 and XP, without success. The only way to buy a machine without that crap is to buy it by pieces. You cannot honestly say that Firefox on Windows is worse than IE. (6 or 7). I still keep an XP boot to play some games, but i use linux mostly, for 7 years now. I think Vista will make many people to switch to Linux or the Mac. If they are a little knowledgeable they will switch to Linux, if they are just 'users' they will switch to the Mac. Vista remains for those who cannot buy a Mac and cannot install a Linux, the real losers.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
> Why do you think people will "switch"?
- You don't need to buy a new computer to get modern version of the operating system.
- Updating programs is easier.
- You don't need to fear viruses and spyware.
- The computer works faster, because antivirus programs are not slowing it down.
- Installing new programs is easier.
- Not all have paid for it, Linux is an legal option.
I was a newbie with both Photoshop and Gimp. Here are the results:
- With Gimp, I could draw some images, but I couldn't draw lines with it (later I learned how to do that)
- With Photoshop, I couldn't draw anything. Never figured out how to do this.
So I think that both are complex and not intuitive enough. But because other is free and the other is not, I would certainly choose Gimp and learn using it.
I was a typical Windows user, until about three years ago I decided to try Firefox. I was impressed. Then I got fed up with Norton AV and downloaded ZoneAlarm and AVG for my wife's PC (not libre software, I know). Then I got fed up with MS's WGA program and installed SuSE on my main PC. (I skipped right over my planned OO on Windows step.) Now I'm using Kubuntu and I have no intention of ever going back to Windows.
But if it hadn't been for the easy availability and high quality of Firefox on Windows, I would never have switched to Linux. Firefox is the best weapon in the whole FOSS arsenal.
Did you have a mouse?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I can't speak for Gimp, but Photoshop is not a drawing program. It is an image manipulation program. If you're looking to draw, try something like Corel Painter or openCanvas. (note that despite what you might assume from the latter's name, it is not open source)
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I had an experience with this kind of thing just today. My music education class is taking a short detour into technology use in the classroom for the next couple of weeks. I was happily surprised to note that one of the prominent examples of music software to use was Audacity. The link was in big bold letters on the handout: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
I heard about this great web browser that was more secure than IE and had lots of cool plugins, so I switched to Firefox.
I got fed up with Office XP crashing all the time, so I switched to OpenOffice.
I got fed up with all the obtrusive ads from AIM, so I switched to Gaim.
I got fed up with inconsistencies in windows media player, so I switched to VLC (for video).
My anti-virus came up for renewal. It was $30 for a year. The only software I used by this time that wasn't on Linux was iTunes, and Amarok does everything I need. Rather than fork over $30, I made a rather smooth transition to Linux. Some months later, my girlfriend followed suit (it's worth noting, she asked me to help her switch, there wasn't much prodding on my part).
Introducing people to open source, cross platform applications lets people make one adaptation at a time. Eventually there may come a time where switching to Linux seems easier than keeping Windows. If you try and switch someone to Linux all at once, you're likely to fail. If you get them to use cross platform apps first, the switch to Linux isn't too big of a leap.
KDE for Windows would be nice, as well as Gnome for Windows. But what would really be helpful is an EASY way to set up a Linux application environment on Windows similar to Wine on Linux. That way users can get used to not only OpenOffice and Firefox, but also programs like Evolution, Grip, gEdit/KEdit, etc. so that when they finally switch over to Linux they won't have to figure out such things as "now what program do I use to replace iTunes that doesn't run on Windows and therefore I couldn't use/get frustrated with until now?" Does such a thing as "inverted Wine" exist, or is it going to be a by-application experience?
You're right. Rather than using the GNU System on top of Linux you could take the userspace component of another Free unix-like system and run that on top of Linux. You could build a Solaris/Linux system or a NetBSD/Linux system. In addition, for embedded systems that don't need to be fully functional Unix-like systems, you can put a simpler userspace on top of the Linux kernel - this is commonly seen in embedded systems.
But... you can't claim that Linux is a Unix-like operating system and also claim that the GNU component of GNU/Linux systems is trivial. Without GNU, Linux is not a general purpose operating system - you'd have to drop in an entire other Unix-like system in order to get Unix-like functionality without GNU. Without Linux, the GNU System will run fine on any of the BSD kernels, on the Solaris kernel, or even on the (still not ready for production use) GNU HURD kernel.
To be very simple and clear: The GNU System has produced a Unix-like operating system that most commonly runs on the Linux kernel. The only replacements for GNU are other full Unix-like operating systems.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Lets be frank, the state of the majority of open source projects doesn't even come close to commercial software in terms of end-user eye candy and ease of use. Not to mention that interoperability with Microsoft software is spotty at best (anyone that's had to support OpenOffice users knows what I'm talking about). There's just as much chance that people are going to fire up the open source counterpart to apps they use, find that their documents don't display correctly in it, and conclude that OSS is a waste of their time. This has always been the big problem with Linux and OSS in general, usability and eye-candy is always something for later. It's always put off and never made a real priority. Then when non-computer nerds see OSS apps they see things that look like throwbacks to Windows 95, or hell, even 3.1. Remember, average users aren't impressed by things like a small memory footprint, a non-restrictive EULA, or even the fact that the software is open source (they don't even know what the hell that means). They see the fact that free programs can't open their documents correctly, drag and drop doesn't always work like it should, the icons normally look ugly...
About KDE, it seems from a quick skimming of the comments that no one has yet remarked that Qt4 is GPL'd for Windows as well (Qt3 was not). As KDE 4 comes around and applications are ported to Qt4, it will be fairly easy to recompile K3b, Amarok, digiKam, Krita, Kile and of course KOffice to Windows. Sometime later this year there may be a flurry of high-quality free software made available for Windows, it will be interesting to see how it develops.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I rarely post, but I feel I should chime in. I've been conditioning my own self to using FOSS apps for a while now so that I can make the switch to Linux a lot easier down the road. There are only a couple applications left for me (Photoshop being the deal-breaker). I'm never going to upgrade to Vista, I'm just going to switch over to something like Ubuntu when I get to the point where I would need to upgrade. By then I hope we'll have a native Photoshop on Linux, or a more robust solution on WINE at least.
Yeah, Photoshop is one reason I've come across as to why people won't switch to Linux. Some FOSS advocates say, if not scream, "GIMP". However for graphics and photgraphy pros GIMP doesn't come close to being a replacement for Photoshop. For instance whereas PS has 24 bit colour channels (and CS3 may have 32 bits) GIMP doesn't even have 16 bit channels, last I heard it's coming RSN, which was more than a year ago. Now I don't know how well it runs in WINE but PS 7 does run in Crossover. Though I got a PC with Linux preinstalled several months ago, personally I hope to get a Macbook Pro in the next 2 or 3 weeks which will be my primary computer.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you only want to call it one word (which is very reasonable), that word is GNU. Because that is the operating system you are running: The GNU operating system.
You don't refer to Windows XP as "NTKRNL32.EXE" either.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
I've recently installed Open Office and Gimp on a few of my customers M$ machines when they were facing the option of a $$$$ M$ Office & Adobe photoshop purchase.
Your clients, customers, I dare say aren't graphic or photography pros, are they? There's just no way GIMP comes close to being a dropin replacement for Photoshop! It doesn't even have 16 bit colour channels whereas Photoshop has 24 bit channels. And I've hear CS3 will have 32 bit channels.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have not actually seen what is on their CD, but there are some examples of free programs, most of which, have already been mentioned, that are available for both Windows and Linux.
I started using firefox, then thunderbird, then gaim, then AVG, then Zone Alarm before I new it the only MS junk I had installed was office (wife needs publisher and uses Word and work) and XP. I've tried to get rid of windows (I've filed 3 separate times. I got Ubuntu working but my lexmark printer wouldn't work (grrr). So it was back to windows. I would agree open aps is the first step in switching to linux os but things need to be plug and play, I need to install it as easily as windows and have it run as easily. I and others can't waste a day trying to get more than half a document to print.
If you install that CD on your computer, RMS will start requesting that you call the operating system GNU/Windows ;-)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Here are a few other examples of free programs which I forgot to include. Like the others they are available in both Windows and Linux versions.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.