Linux quickies

[Nixie Pixel]

Hey everyone, linuxhaxor.net approached me and asked me if I would be willing to do a weekly "Linux quickie" video. The point would be to talk about something educational as well as simply to have a woman talking about Linux to make it seem less intimidating for people.

I would love if you fine folk could give me ideas on what to talk about to better get the word out about Linux (Ubuntu being what I use as my distro, so I talk about it, and people who call me an Ubuntu fanboi(girl?) be damned!), but also be somewhat educational.

Thanks to the wonderful people of this forum I have some things I can talk about already, but I'd love to make this as useful as I can to people. Keep in mind that I'm still really new at this so I can't very well talk about really advanced topics.. yet!

Here is an example of what I'm doing:

Nixie's GRUB dual-boot quickie video (http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/04/11/nixies-linux-haxor-quickie-getting-started-with-grub/)

Thanks!

[SuperSonic4]

Do what most people want - browsing and multimedia. In this I'd include

medibuntu
codecs
Flash 32/64

[bashveank]

Whatever you do, make sure your video is sharp and contrasty, and your audio crisp, otherwise everyone will be put off.

[Rokurosv]

You could talk about Linux, or Ubuntu, equivalents for some apps, for example OpenOffice to MS Office, similarities, pros and cons, etc. that type of stuff, because a lot of people I know ask me questions like: "Does Linux have an office suite? Can I use MSN on Linux? Can I plug in my Ipod on Linux?".

[Nixie Pixel]

medibuntu I can do, no problem
codecs...maybe, just what is recommended to install along with medibuntu
flash, however, I would need help with, since I still have problems with flash stuttering from time to time

[ghostandmachine]

how about these:

how much uname -a can help someone

a simple building from source project

maybe just simple things like changing network settings, adding programs to the apps menu, etc.

sounds like fun. I was thinking about creating some tut vids about ardour and recording music using a linux box and how pro it can sound. maybe I'll do that someday. maybe.

[kpkeerthi]

How about command-line alternatives for common tasks, including video/audio conversion, DVD authoring, download managers, CD ripping/tagging, etc. ?

[toupeiro]

* Personal Media players (iPods and company) and software (Amarok)
* Basic Digital graphics tasks in Gimp or in nautilus with various plugins (e.g. photo resizing, red eye reduction, transparencies etc etc.)
* Wine?

[OutOfReach]

How about video card/special effects FAQ, you know: how do I enable visual effects? why doesn't it let me use visual effects?

simple things like that

[adamlau]

The advantages and disadvantages of Ubuntu Minimal and amd64 releases. Bash aliases.

[ad_267]

Inkscape.

Show people they can make graphics that don't suck. It's not really a Linux thing specifically, but it's pretty useful.

[divague]

You could talk about linux games.

[calrogman]

Yes please.

[billgoldberg]

- compiling something from source
- installing a media server
- use tty2 and cli apps (links, nano) to fix your system when X is borked up
- manually installing ATI and NVIDIA drivers
- changing iptables using ufw and reasons why you should or shouldn't do it
- something on ssh and how it can benefit people

I could go on for a while.

Maybe you can find some ideas on my blog (see sig).

It hasn't been updated for a while, but there is a huge amount of Ubuntu (or linux in general) info in there that is helpful for beginning user (and more advanced ones).

[Sealbhach]

You could talk about linux games.

Yes, good angle - if these videos are aimed at people thinking of trying out Linux - as your first video would suggest.


Install and run some really kickass game like COD4 or some Steam games.

Also maybe a look at Pidgin.

.

[MaxIBoy]

Talk about UNIX permissions, what "sudo" or "su" is for, and why it's a bad idea to run around as root all the time.

This is the one thing that trips up new users the most. They're not used to this thing we like to call "security."

[Mokoma]

talk about the massive amount of native linux games like quake 4 and doom 3..........and ummmmmmm doom 3...............ummmmmmmmm...........

[MaxIBoy]

Don't forget Quake 3!

(I'm serious, I think it's all been downhill since Quake 3.)

[Mokoma]

Don't forget Quake 3!

(I'm serious, I think it's all been downhill since Quake 3.)

oh yeah quake 3! but yeah i could never figure out how to set that up :/

[Mehall]

Well Unreal Tournaments are all native, except UT3 due to legal issues.

And the Open Source Quake 3 has seen a fair bit of refinement. Urban Terror is a great game.

[Mokoma]

Well Unreal Tournaments are all native, except UT3 due to legal issues.

And the Open Source Quake 3 has seen a fair bit of refinement. Urban Terror is a great game.

yeah true, but the amount of native games is pretty crap. the old joke of macs having no games should be used for linux :biggrin:

[Tibuda]

yeah true, but the amount of native games is pretty crap. the old joke of macs having no games should be used for linux :biggrin:
Why do you care about amount of native games, instead of quality of such games? (I assume you agree that Urban Terror is a great game)

[Mokoma]

Why do you care about amount of native games, instead of quality of such games? (I assume you agree that Urban Terror is a great game)

is that the cs ripoff right? i wouldnt know it refused to connect to servers for me. quality is most important yes. but theres only so many times you can play quake 4 and doom 3 before getting bored. it would be nice to have more than just fps native games. thank god for wine :lolflag:

[Tibuda]

is that the cs ripoff right? i wouldnt know it refused to connect to servers for me. quality is most important yes. but theres only so many times you can play quake 4 and doom 3 before getting bored. it would be nice to have more than just fps native games. thank god for wine :lolflag:If you like Real time stratgey, try the Spring engine (http://spring.clan-sy.com/) games.

And why the hell are you complaining here? It has nothing to do with the thread.

[Mokoma]

If you like Real time stratgey, try the Spring engine (http://spring.clan-sy.com/) games.

And why the hell are you complaining here? It has nothing to do with the thread.

lol calm down dude, the chick asked for linux related stuff, i was only replying with a sarcastic answer

[SigmaSanti]

Definitely do something on installation of nVidia and ATI drivers, manual install, install from a ppa, and the package manager. Those things driver me crazy, The newest stable are never in the repositories and install from nVidias always breaks something.

[s3a]

Do not involve the terminal if you want to convert windows users! Show only graphical stuff! Show and explain how synaptic works.

Talk about how mnemosyne, kmplot, tomboy notes and xournal makes a student's life better :)

Especially if gaming is not what a student's laptop is for, demonstrate using educational software such as what I wrote above how GNU/Linux is extremely convenient for one's studies.

Talk about how you can carry a whole operating system in a 4GB flash drive and still have over 1GB of space to do work with or something! Also show how workspaces can help you organize your windows.

Maybe also mention that linux's performance does not deteriorate over time like Windows due to fragmentation that sometimes can't even be fully solved! Let's not forget the registry, etc.

Also include a little something about Ubuntu's out of the box hardware support maybe?

[dragos240]

I would say, just give a decent guide on how to install, load up, get flash (and other junk the average user would use), how to use the synaptic package manager, how to play around, and perhaps a quick guide around the terminal (save for last).