On Tuesday 27 Mar 2007 00:05:13 Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
- Check which applications need to be moved on priority to Linux.
Web browser, messengers (yahoo and hotmail), PDF reader, office apps. Everything else (photoshop, corel, etc.) are novelty and not too many cyber cafes have it.
True I think. But they're usually present if the cafe has a printer. But also, they're present on just the print server.. usually.
- Check with Crossover office if they are willing to make yahoo
messenger, msn messenger to work under linux. More the number of ppl who request for a
What do messengers by crossover office provide that are superior to gaim/kopete/ayttm/put_your_fav_foss_messenger_here? (It's a genuine question)
Voice chat, webcam and those useless winks etc. Even more of a problem is the familiar interface. People need those and the Linux messengers don't have them. I think AMSN is a good replacement for MSN messenger. Except voice it supports nearly all the major features properly. Even Kmess is a good alternative. The problem is with Yahoo. There's no good a replacement. Kopete supports Webcam and all, but creating temporary user accounts in Kopete is a pain because it works on Unix design philosophy, assuming that every user will login using a different system account rather than all of them logging in with one single accounts and creating different temporary accounts.
I seriously feel Wine is a really good intermediate solution to the problem of moving client desktops to Linux.
I really would prefer suggesting a longer term solution that would give users a truly great experience of FOSS software.
I think rather using wine, develop proper alternatives and deploy them. Keep in mind the fact that if you do manage to get cyber cafes to use Linux, there's a good chance that you'll gain a few home users as well. Developing proper FOSS alternatives for the common software a home user needs is the best way.