RE: [LUG] Advocating Linux was: Computer Shops and Linux (and various other s as well).

["Julian Hall" <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I missed the beginning of this thread, so apologies in advance if I am
repeating what has already been said.

As you may or may not know I have had Linux on my system for the best part
of a year now, and for one reason or another I still count myself as a
newbie.  Mainly down to time availability to sit down and learn an entire
new OS having been Windows-hampered for the last 8 or 9 years.  Having said
that, with regard to the thread, from a newbie perspective I would like to
see;

1.  Choice in the High Street.  It's all very well Evesham and HP etc
bucking MS and selling systems with Linux installed as a choice, however
they are only going to get people who already know about Linux.  HP AFAIK
are only planning on selling Linux PCs in the Far East (Knoppix?) and USA
(Mandrake I think?).  Nothing in the UK.  As for Evesham, people will only
buy from them who already have an Internet connection, and therefore
obviously a PC.  It's not a good idea to tell a newbie PC owner, "OK you've
just got to grips with Windows, dump that now and learn Linux".  It won't
happen.

However, if the HS outlets (and I'm including superstores like PC World)
sold Linux PCs over the counter, the newbie user would start learning Linux
from day one.  I know myself all too well how hard it is for someone who has
used Windows for years to suddenly swap over to a new OS.  When you've been
using Windows a long time, it's not even simply the OS, it's all the
applications you have come to know and love.  Relearning the Linux
equivalents, *finding* the Linux equivalents, getting WINE to work if there
is no Linux equivalent... etc etc..

The point I am making, and admittedly taking a long time over ;) simply the
old "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" but catch it as a puppy and
you're laughing.

2.  More simple English used in manuals and documentation.  The Linux
community *is* a real community of helpful people, and I applaud you all and
thank you for the help you have given me.  However, those like me *need*
your help because manuals and documentation are generally written by people
who assume an experienced Linux user is reading it.  Comments like "edit the
fstab to say...." or "recompile the kernel", "compile the RPM..." etc,
without any real help to the new user as to *how* to do that exactly.  I
know and appreciate nobody can cross all the Ts and dot *all* the Is, but a
little less generalisation wouldn't hurt :)

3.  Greater awareness.  The problem Linux faces is Advertising.  Microsoft
most likely have a budget of millions, whereas the Linux community en bloc
has next to nothing.  However the big distros such as RedHat, SUSE and
Mandrake etc could do more IMHO to push awareness of their OSs, so that the
(mainly) TV watching public will think when they go into their local shop
"Oh that Linux looked good"  "Excuse me Salesperson, I want a new PC with
Linux on it."  The more people who do that, the more likely the management
will start to see the profit of shipping PCs with Linux pre-installed.

Anyway, those are the thoughts of a relative newbie :)

Kind regards,

Julian

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
Of Simon Waters
Sent: 10 May 2004 17:53
To: list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [LUG] Advocating Linux was: Computer Shops and Linux (and
various other s as well).


Brough, Tom wrote:
> I know I'm going to get flamed about this, but then that's part of
advocacy
> :-)

;)

> 1. Its NOT the job of any particular shop to promote one "brand"  of
> technology over another. True, better shops will retain more informed
staff
> who will be able to give Joe Punter (JP) an idea of what to expect and
which
> way to go, but ultimately JP makes the decision as to what he buys and the
> reasons for buying (and rightly so).

Quite a lot of businesses look to their "computer shop" to provide
support, and a service, rather than just hardware/software.

As such it is the shops job to deliver a system that works, and the
business customers will buy it if they like it. Joe Corporate doesn't
care what is inside - any company choosing technology on philosophical
grounds is losing the plot (unless that philosophy can be expected to
bring clear business benefits) - similarly any company rejecting free
software because they "don't know about it", or "don't understand it",
better learn how to make purchasing decisions.

I know Shabir at Titan was keen on anything that would get him email and
file servers in the field that;

a) Go wrong less often.
b) Need less on-site visits.

He was interested in Linux for this, but I'm confident he'd equally be
interested in Open BSD, or MacOSX, or Windows add-ons. What matters to
him is keeping customers happy and coming back to buy the next lot of
computers or consumables. His main problem with Linux was I suspect
finding a supplier to provide a turn-key solution for small businesses.

I was looking at these turn-key solutions - but I ran out of energy/time
to pursue it. Also the market is quite competitive (there are a lot of
small suppliers of Linux mail/file servers), but there is room for
someone providing a hybred 'distributor/VAR' service for some of these
products locally I'm sure, as log as you can market them effectively.

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