From: jtdsouza@softhome.net To: linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] Linux India Initiative Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 22:54:26 -0700 Reply-To: linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in

On Friday 03 January 2003 21:34, Nikhil Karkera wrote:

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**************************************** * LUG meet on 12 Jan. 2003 @ VJTI ****************************************

On Wed, 25 Dec 2002 Nikhil Joshi wrote :

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Come on who are we kidding? Do these ppl really care (and why should they?) if theres Linux or GNU/Linux or whatever and what is the right (read purists) way of The shopowners and home users already use free (read pirated) software. While the step is very welcome it would be really good >> to see the lowest denominator using Linux apart from scientists,sarkari babus,geeks

Wrong presumption that initial capital costs is the only cost. As usage increases, the costs for maintainence and security of data exceeds the initial capital cost by orders of magnitude (now u know why M$ is trying to change it's bussiness model). This is true for any user. The hassle of keeping out worms and preventing random crashes is what will turn the shop owner and home user to GNU/Linux.

rgds jtdsouza@softhome.net

While encouraging home users to switch to Linux we have to also remember that they may be owning non-compatible hardware like winmodems, printers, scanners, digital cameras and the like which will make things extremely difficult for them to agree to replace a working system for another which results in more expense. Almost all Linux distros out-of-the-box would not work for many and they would not have the skills / patience to learn manual configuring etc to make most of these hardwares work in Linux.

Of course we also know that most home users are using pirated softwares which did not cost anything and the only cost incurred by them is for the hardware. So would they throw away their old hardware which is still good enough to work for another 5-10 years.

I believe that home users have no other costs except the initial hardware cost and it is not sounding convicing enough that their operating costs or TCO would make enough difference to switch an OS. Floppies / CDs are sufficient to back up all the important data for home users and most would not understand what the fuss is all about even if they are habituated to rebooting their systems 3 times in a day. Keep in mind that most such home users do not keep their systems on for any longer than they actually use it. So uptime and stability remain just irrelevant words.

Worms , viruses, firewalls, antivirus software, reboot, BSOD etc are perfectly normal words in home users lexicons but Apt-get, root, privileges, sources, /dev/hda, mount etc are not.

So even though we are looking at a superior OS and other applications, it still needs a little more finishing touches to get the whole package ready for everyone's use. Let's help by evangelizing a little more and get atleast one acquaintance interested enough to switch to a dual boot first (hardware permitting). A little emphasis on taking the high moral ground and refusing to use pirated softwares when legal alternatives exist, would be a nice approach with someone who has a sense of wrong and right. Even a switch to OSS alternatives on Windows (OpenOffice.org and Mozilla) as a first step would be a nice way to show off the capabilities of the alternative system.

Nasir