Sad as it may be I like pretty graphics. My first games where pure text based, and having to look up wich character represented wich type of unit c = carrier C= enemy carrier is a pain.
More importantltly I play games for fun. Part of the fun is seeing nice things moving on screen and remember please that TA at the time had some very nice eye candy, if you said you still played Dune II I would have been impressed.
That said I just played this CV and the graphics where functinal enough. I hated it for the old reason I never really like free civ. I got wiped out in the 4th round.
The fault that you as so many western people make is thinking the rest of the world is one bleak desert with childeren starving while their parents fight decade long wars over so much sand.
These areas do exist and putting computers here is indeed useless, many projects in the past have done this, or things like it I still can recall as failed project that had ppl knitting sweaters in africa.
India however, and some other countries, is different. It has got money, a 27 billion software industry for one (you didn't think XP as US made did you?), it as got just about enough food to feed most of its citizens, most of the time.
But now it needs to make the next step and this one is perhaps the hardest, you only need peace for farmers to farm their crops. You need knowledge to get them to farm the right crops, at the right time, to increase productivity so that a draught in one area is offset by others. You need people to think a head and build dykes and reservoirs. These things require people to learn things and that is where projects like this come in.
As to you're point of more usefull technologies, many a western tractor is standing in africa for want of part, fuel, instruction manuals or because people are to busy fighting. The most usefull "technology" we could export to those poorest nations you mention is peace. Only then will people have time to farm and feed themselves, and they need little more for this then a stick and seeds.
Ehm, 128MB vs 256MB, just the OS vs OS plus all the software anyone could everwant?
Granted the difference should really be higher considering the price of a XP home shrink-wapped box. Maybe mandrake's wife want a new pair of shoes?
Much as I hate to admit it, I am old enough to remember the day AOL gave its users access to usenet, 1993 end of the year. I am not going to say it was a day that will live in infamy, sadly there are far worse moments in computer history, but I sometimes miss those earlier days.
AOL was net access for the masses, just as this is linux for the masses. Problem was then, and still is that the masses are not ready nor ever will be ready for some parts of the internet. Slashdot itself has more then enough examples of this.
As a european I can only guess at the type of consumer likely to buy at Walmart, but I would make a small wager that they are not the most tech savy and probably never heard of linux before. They will expect to buy a cheap machine, considering they left out the price of the OS it ain't that cheap, that installs as easily as a preconfigured XP box or Mac. Problem is that it could very well be as easy. After all the people doing the pre-installing know exacltly wich hardware it will run on, and this is often the most difficult bit of installing any OS.
What I fear is what comes next. How will these users ever maintain their systems? They will probably flock to online channels demanding help. Newsgroups will be full off messages like "NEED HELP NOW!!!!! XXXXX IS BUGGY FIX IT".
Will the online linux community, wich overall is very patient and helpfull really be capable of handling all this? There is a reason proffesional windows help lines charge their customers premium rates and are always understaffed. Dealing with the fast majority of customers out there is an excersise in pain.
Linux is for geeks. People who love computers and like finding things out the hardway. Or who just want a powerfull OS and are willing to accept having to find things out the hardway. Linux is not ready, and hopefully never will be, to allow those who expect instant succes. It took MS a company with billions of dollars, some ten, 10 years to get windows to where it is now. Are we really capable or even willing to do the same?
Happens all the time. CPU's are one extreme example. Early Intel celerons had the hidden capacity to be used in a multi processor setup. This was only changed when Intel noted that a lot of users where opting to buy two dirt cheap celerons rather then the overpriced PII(I) they wanted you to buy.
Same with overclockin. It is easy enough to accomplish with an AMD chip, don't have Intel myself anymore so couldn't say, but AMD sure as hell ain't telling users about it.
I started my IT career on the PROGRESS platform, RDMS and 4GL in one. Their monitoring tool had a "secret" section I only learned about when a rep visitid for some testing.
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Sad as it may be I like pretty graphics. My first games where pure text based, and having to look up wich character represented wich type of unit c = carrier C= enemy carrier is a pain.
More importantltly I play games for fun. Part of the fun is seeing nice things moving on screen and remember please that TA at the time had some very nice eye candy, if you said you still played Dune II I would have been impressed.
That said I just played this CV and the graphics where functinal enough. I hated it for the old reason I never really like free civ. I got wiped out in the 4th round.
You are both 100% right and 100% wrong.
The fault that you as so many western people make is thinking the rest of the world is one bleak desert with childeren starving while their parents fight decade long wars over so much sand.
These areas do exist and putting computers here is indeed useless, many projects in the past have done this, or things like it I still can recall as failed project that had ppl knitting sweaters in africa.
India however, and some other countries, is different. It has got money, a 27 billion software industry for one (you didn't think XP as US made did you?), it as got just about enough food to feed most of its citizens, most of the time.
But now it needs to make the next step and this one is perhaps the hardest, you only need peace for farmers to farm their crops. You need knowledge to get them to farm the right crops, at the right time, to increase productivity so that a draught in one area is offset by others. You need people to think a head and build dykes and reservoirs. These things require people to learn things and that is where projects like this come in.
As to you're point of more usefull technologies, many a western tractor is standing in africa for want of part, fuel, instruction manuals or because people are to busy fighting. The most usefull "technology" we could export to those poorest nations you mention is peace. Only then will people have time to farm and feed themselves, and they need little more for this then a stick and seeds.
Ehm, 128MB vs 256MB, just the OS vs OS plus all the software anyone could everwant? Granted the difference should really be higher considering the price of a XP home shrink-wapped box. Maybe mandrake's wife want a new pair of shoes?
Much as I hate to admit it, I am old enough to remember the day AOL gave its users access to usenet, 1993 end of the year. I am not going to say it was a day that will live in infamy, sadly there are far worse moments in computer history, but I sometimes miss those earlier days.
AOL was net access for the masses, just as this is linux for the masses. Problem was then, and still is that the masses are not ready nor ever will be ready for some parts of the internet. Slashdot itself has more then enough examples of this.
As a european I can only guess at the type of consumer likely to buy at Walmart, but I would make a small wager that they are not the most tech savy and probably never heard of linux before. They will expect to buy a cheap machine, considering they left out the price of the OS it ain't that cheap, that installs as easily as a preconfigured XP box or Mac. Problem is that it could very well be as easy. After all the people doing the pre-installing know exacltly wich hardware it will run on, and this is often the most difficult bit of installing any OS.
What I fear is what comes next. How will these users ever maintain their systems? They will probably flock to online channels demanding help. Newsgroups will be full off messages like "NEED HELP NOW!!!!! XXXXX IS BUGGY FIX IT".
Will the online linux community, wich overall is very patient and helpfull really be capable of handling all this? There is a reason proffesional windows help lines charge their customers premium rates and are always understaffed. Dealing with the fast majority of customers out there is an excersise in pain.
Linux is for geeks. People who love computers and like finding things out the hardway. Or who just want a powerfull OS and are willing to accept having to find things out the hardway. Linux is not ready, and hopefully never will be, to allow those who expect instant succes. It took MS a company with billions of dollars, some ten, 10 years to get windows to where it is now. Are we really capable or even willing to do the same?
Happens all the time. CPU's are one extreme example. Early Intel celerons had the hidden capacity to be used in a multi processor setup. This was only changed when Intel noted that a lot of users where opting to buy two dirt cheap celerons rather then the overpriced PII(I) they wanted you to buy. Same with overclockin. It is easy enough to accomplish with an AMD chip, don't have Intel myself anymore so couldn't say, but AMD sure as hell ain't telling users about it. I started my IT career on the PROGRESS platform, RDMS and 4GL in one. Their monitoring tool had a "secret" section I only learned about when a rep visitid for some testing.