idea to increase FLOSS users

[wildawe]

I'm placing this thread in the hope it may be useful to the FLOSS, in case it gets due attention and interest.

In a recent Ubuntu review, made in the Washington Post, the author concluded in this way:

"And that's an important thing to remember when talking about glitches in Linux: Yes, they exist, but they can crop up in Windows, too. In Linux, they don't cost you anything -- at least in terms of money. Time is another thing ... especially if you're not accustomed to the vocabulary and grammar of Linux."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/01/ubuntu_910_review.html

In good truth, Linux information for newcomers is too disperse, diffuse and deprecated. I remember that when I arrived to Linux, one year ago, I posted at LinuxQuestions, to present myself there. Following my post, another new comer, as lost as I was, asked where he could start reading, to get involved with Linux. Nobody was able to give an acceptable answer.

I think that the Linux desktop distro world, would have all to gain by creating a task force, dedicated to a specifically massive action, targeting windows new comers, by creating a very clear, succinct, well done, and attractive kind of Wiki, to facilitate the adaptation of those users to our way of speak and do things.

This project must be top quality, above all. It may require a multidisciplinary venture, involving some marketing, sociology, advertising, art work and of course, technical skills.

After the Wiky and all related work is completed, it should be centralized somewhere and kept updated. It will allow to be linked to every FLOSS and Distro sites who would want to adhere, placing it at a very visible place, and in a very attractive way.

This could be done with some kind of a standard banner, the like of:

"We welcome all Windows users. Please follow this link to learn all the advantages to adopt Linux, how Linux works, our terminology and other useful information for newcomers"

In case of Distro sites, some parts of the standard text, should be allowed to be changed, to meet the specifics of each distro.

I have all the pleasure to leave this project to the consideration of this forum community.

Note that I'm not looking for credit for myself, in any way, and I cannot even cooperate in the execution of this idea due to my lack of Linux skills. I just feel that the community hasn't been growing as fast as it deserves and we need to get together and become more aggressive on finding new ways to achieve that purpose. This is especially relevant after recent news in the net pointing out that our greatest developers are getting now quite old, and new blood is needed.

Everyone may be able to cooperate, even that just by spreading the word.

Now, one example, regarding the utility of the intention behind the idea I placed.

I know it could lead to a never ending discussion, so I may not massacre you people with my rants, only this, for a termination.

Most computer users, but not all, are the so cold average joe/jane. Those, use to be older people, may find and use Linux, and may stay, or leave earlier or later. Usually are people who will not bother to learn, unless the most basics of their PC. They may never become a value added to the community. Others may find Linux interesting enough to invest it''s time on it. Some of those, may learn, and become another geeks. This means, more people coming, higher is the chance to gain useful people to the community.

Now, lets look at the reality of modern life. At some cities in Europe, there is people who take 2 hours to arrive to their job, and the same time, in the way back. They have dinner with their family. Then they seat on his/her pc to look about Linux, because one friend said it was a fantastic thing. He starts googling and what does he see? grub (what a hell is this) distro (...?) live cd ( ... ?) i386, i586, amd64 ( .....?), kernel ( ...?) gnu (...?), gnome (...?), kde (...? ) xfce (...?), partition my disk (...?) gparted (...?) windows manager (....?), DE (...?) brasero (...?) 3b (...?) gftp (...?), terminal (..?), ... CLI (...?) you name it. But only those common to all distros.

At 4 am, the poor man is tired, frustrated, lost, didn''t have a word all night with their family and will be blaming the stupid friend who told him about the great Linux.. For him, ***o** Linux. for ever. This is not for me... geek stuff. And yes, the community may have lost here a future nice geek. Because at every site he went, he did not find a nice (standard) wiky, who would have though him all those grammar (common to all distros) in a mere 1/2 hour.

This is my point.

Thanks for all who read.

[jwenting]

and your point with all that ranting (you lost me after the first few paragraphs)?

To gain market share you must have (in no particular order)
1) quality
2) marketing
3) sex appeal

Microsoft has all 3, Linux has only the first.
And the Linux crowd as a whole steadfastly refuses to engage in the other 2 for no other reason than that "it's what big corporations do", their religious fervour preventing them from doing what's needed to get their products adopted by the mainstream.

If Linux were useable by computer illiterates and they'd not be calling me every hour day and night with questions on how to get things working (and keep them working) I would likely have set it up for my parents.
I might be using it myself (I don't want the pain of spending half of every day keeping my machine running, which in the world of Linux is, at least in my experience, the norm).

As is, I keep a few VMWare images with some Linux distro and Solaris for when I want to fool around and keep my Unix shell knowledge up, but for day to day operations I use Windows which is pretty much maintenance free for me.
Let's summarise: Windows JUST WORKS, Linux requires near constant tinkering.
For the average user that's not something that works for them.

[wildawe]

jwenting ;

Its good to see that you are not a Windows fan boy, you chose what ever o/s you feel to suit your needs, but keep an open mind regarding other choices and technologies. All that are positive points in my book.

Linux (on the desktop) has already climbed high the mountain of utility and usability. I know it's not yet at the top, but keeps improving.

If we exclude some particular users needing, like gamers, office, photoshop and one or other more, Linux may suit a broad set of users, today.

My wish to see more public utilization of Linux, besides what I expressed in my post, has another reasoning.

I'm copying this, from a comment I left somewhere else. Please pass the under expression "I don't like M$"

I'm posting it integrally, so I my be on or off topic, here and there.

"I'm at Linux for two reasons: First because I don't like M$. Second, because would I find a company, organization, or a community of developers, who could successfully compete with M$ in bringing choice to the consumer while releasing him from their lock-in practices, promote innovation to the products, and bring healthy market competition, I would probably support it.

So, I support FOSS, as it can achieve all of that. Like me, many more people have been approaching FOSS lately, for those same reasons. This has brought more visibility to FOSS, for one side, and some new concerns, for other side. Specially, because there are many who would like to see Linux to be used by the masses (desktop), while many others think this cannot be done without compromise, disrupt, and fragment some of the original community values, conceived by people that simultaneous, were users and developers, and at the time, only a few, or any corporations where involved.

Red Hat is doing well, at corporate and at the desktop segments. Canonical is trying to follow them. In my opinion they're tracing the best direction for the future of Linux, and there is room for more corporations to come on board. To balance things, the independent developers must work each other closer, creating one or two more mega projects like Debian."

[jwenting]

you your primary reason to like Linux is not that you like it but that you dislike the company that releases a competing product?
That's sadly quite typical of most of what I see of the Linux zealots which include the vast majority of its developers.
It's a major reason why Linux hasn't yet and probably never will reach the level of usability of Windows (or other major commercial OSs).

Linux has indeed come a long way since I first used it some 15 years ago, but it's effectively still at the stage of Windows 3.0 (at best) when it comes to ease of use and especially configuration.
That means it's still 20 years behind the times (and 15 years ago it was less far behind than that, so it's lost ground for all the improvements that have been made in the usability sphere at least).

And usability is ALL that matters to most people.

[wildawe]

you your primary reason to like Linux is not that you like it but that you dislike the company that releases a competing product?
That's sadly quite typical of most of what I see of the Linux zealots which include the vast majority of its developers.
It's a major reason why Linux hasn't yet and probably never will reach the level of usability of Windows (or other major commercial OSs).

Linux has indeed come a long way since I first used it some 15 years ago, but it's effectively still at the stage of Windows 3.0 (at best) when it comes to ease of use and especially configuration.
That means it's still 20 years behind the times (and 15 years ago it was less far behind than that, so it's lost ground for all the improvements that have been made in the usability sphere at least).

And usability is ALL that matters to most people.

"you your primary reason to like Linux is not that you like it but that you dislike the company that releases a competing product?"

Let's consider this tow companies:

Comp 1 - Abuse of monopoly and Unfair and anti competitive practices, well disclosed in previous trial, Lock-in customer practices, Appropriation of competitors, to stole ideas, or extinguish them, unfair prices, unfair distribution of earnings, Use of it's deep pockets to influence all the media, on their favour. and much, , much more, of the like.

Comp 2 - Linux = possible alternative to restate balance in the market, where the consumer will be the first winner and none of the above bad behaviours.

Which do you like better?

I like Linux.

And behind Linux, I value and appreciate the principles and fundamentals of the FLOSS.

Regarding where you think Linux is today, in the desktop, compared to Windows, it's one opinion, between tens of thousands of other different ones.

[bubai@246]

I started Linux RedHat .I know that Linux is command base.but i do not understand that Linux File setup.example -windows file setup .exe. so what is Linux file setup