Thank you, to all people here!

[rocket16]

Hello to all friends here! I am very excited to announce that, with the help of all of you, that is Ubuntu helpers, we are finally successful in popularising the Ubuntu. We generated a customized version of Ubuntu using Remastersys and UCK and ULC. That version has been so popular, that within 15 days, most people in our close locality happily became Ubuntu users. In such a small remote town of India, and its villages, we have more than 300 Users, out of a total of nearly 1000 or so. We conducted the statistics last seven days, and thus, now we have more than 30% of users using Ubuntu! This could never have been possible without all your generous help. Thanks to all! Our next goal is to achieve 50% of Ubuntu users, and we are looking eagerly looking forword to your advice.

[rocket16]

I am very sorry, I meant "Thank you" instead of "Hank you" at Heading.

[rocket16]

Today we are looking forward to your advice. So, can you please gibe us some more sugsstions on what to include in our custom Ubuntu version? It is mainly expected to be an Ultimate version, to help all in all types of work. But it is primarily targetted towards Srudents. Additionally, in our survey, we found that several students prefer Ubuntu to Windows as OS in their Desktops.

[P4man]

the ones you should really be thanking are those that developed ubuntu and linux in general in the first place. But its nice to see such an acceptance rate. Looks like you did a superb job customizing and advocating. Ongratulations :)

[rocket16]

Thanks! I thank the developers of Ubuntu heartily, but still, your credits are also not less! I have always received help and cooperation from this Forums, and so did my friends! Thanks to Ubutnu Forums.

[chinmaya_n]

Thats a great job.....!!
I 'm really proud to hear such a good rate!
Which town is that?? ( I'm an Indian !! So just intrested! )

[rocket16]

The town is Purulia, a small town near Kolkata in West Bengal.

[stderr]

Thank you, rocket16. Ah, if only we could achieve such rates here in the UK! I've taken a good number of people over to Ubuntu, but I doubt it ranks nearly as high as 30% of the people I know, let alone 30% of those in my town! You put me to shame :D

Aside from the basics (Flashplayer, Acroread etc), what sort of things are you thinking of?
I presume you already have openoffice, evince, gimp, ... etc. ?

audacity may be of use for audio editing
epiphany-browser is a very simple & lightweight web browser
devede is useful for DVD authoring
dia is a simple diagramming application
vlc is an excellent video/audio player
virtualbox allows for running other operating systems as virtual machines
xmoto whiles away the hours ;)

[hockeytux]

30% Ubuntu users... well done! Im sure youre well past the critical mass needed to actually completely turn the tables on 'the other OS'.

As to what programs to add; if its mainly for students you could go with the standard Ubuntu minus the games maybe (or different games). Also add Stellarium cos its awesome (even if youre not interested in astronomy that much).

For school students you could add some educational games maybe.

[rocket16]

Dear friend Stedrr, do not get disheartened. I salute your great efforts in popularising Ubuntu, and I believe and pray for your success! By the way, we are including the following softwaresas basics:
1. GCompris for young kids
2. Pocket Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia
3. Games like Wesnorth, Chromium, Nexuiz, Cube, Extreme Tux Racer ulimate (as a replacement for roadrash)
4. Kalzium, Kig, Dia, KGeography and other Educational tools for students of Science
5. KDevelop, BlueJ for Linux, Python Shell, Glade, Gambus etc. for Programmers (The most popular programming languages here are Java and VB. Since we can not include VB in Linux, as that would be against Microsoft Policies, so we included Gambus. People are more than ahppy to get it!)
6. Totem-Xine, Vlc, GNOME Player with Mp3 and DVD plugins.
7. OpenOffice Suite, KOffice Suite and AbiOffice Suite (people are carried away, to get Theree Office Suites in one DVD)
8. Multiple Desktop Environments (GNOME, KDE and Xfce)
9. Compiz and Beryl as addons (When I used the Compiz-Fire painting to write my name on desktop, the people were astonished to such an extent, that they immidietly brought CDs to copy Ubuntu)
Many others are also packed up, such as Hindi and Bengali language support for Linux. UCK and Remastersys are added for others. Additionally, , wallpapers of India, are also included. The History of India is also included as a PDF. We have included a couple of PDFs related to Science, Stories, Ubuntu and others in ubuntu, which serve as an E-Library.
Additionally, we have already included Stellarium, KStars etc. Our next objective is to prepare different versions of Ubuntu, such as:
1. Ubuntu Educational Edition
2. Ubuntu Business Edition
Etc. We have also included Finalcial ones, such as KMyMoney and Economize etc. to help traders.

[stderr]

Thanks rocket16. Crumbs, that's quite a comprehensive selection of software you've compiled there. It includes almost everything one would need.

Racking my brains, what isn't on your list... CCSM, The GIMP, Audacity, Sound Converter, Wine, Pidgin, Frozen-Bubble, ... struggling to think of much else that would be of use to many people.

There are other packages I typically install - natuilus-open-terminal, ssh, sshfs, apt-file, cfv, gpar2, lm-sensors... but I don't know if people would actually use any of these anyway. It may be a good idea to get lm-sensors though.

You may want to install gufw - an insanely easy-to-configure firewall (well, not a firewall in itself, but it configures Linux's inbuilt iptables firewall).

[community nerd]

I have 100 percent in my tiny remote house using ubuntu. Thankyou all.

[chinmaya_n]

I think better not to install "wine" !!

Though it is a great software for running some of the windows applications it also inherits the property of virus affection !!
Some viruses can run throuth wine! but they can't make any changes or problems to a ubuntu system. But if the system is a dual boot with windows it may cause some problems!!

[rocket16]

Thanks to all again. Friend chinmaya_n, thanks for the tip. Then, we will have to reconsider installing Wine. Actually, we already did that, I mean Wine 1.1.26 (unstable). Still, we are getting a number of Complains, that Microsoft Softewares do not run on Wine. So, I created a team, with 3 other friends, about what to do in this fact. Finally, we got a solution. We advocated that Microsoft Office and other such softwares are non-free. So, even if one buys them, they need to be installed seperately. But Open Office and KOffice etc. are free and are readily installed. So, people finally understood, and since we are packing three Office Suites, like Abi-Office, Open Office and KOffice, therefore they agreed. So, it is better to uninstall Wine.

[rocket16]

As for friend Stderr, you did an awesome job, by pointing us to include GIMP. Practically, we did not include GIMP, and instead gave the F-Spot, since very few people are interested in Photo editing in our locality. But believe or not, just day before yesterday, one classmate of mine came to our Club, and made it known to us, that his 1st cousin has a studio. Now, he installed a printer (HP Deskjet 2200n series), and uses his Computer for Photo Editing. Now, primarily he used a Pirated edition of XP, and used Adone-Photoshop for work. He tried to download updates from Microsoft, but they prevented, owing to his pirated installtion. Even more, the pirated CD contains a virus, which affected his whole installation. So, XP crashed many a times. Since his machine has Internet, so often Viruses damage his installation. Many Photos are lost. For security, he needs to buy Norton Security licenses from time to time (Earlier he used Free Avira, but he wished to have a professional edition).

[rocket16]

So, we just sent a team of ours, (4 people only) to go to his shop and check his installation. Besides, when our friends returned, they told us that he is too afraid to install Linux. So, I just went to the shop, and requested him to give a try, and decided to install Ubuntu using Wubi, to avoid any risk. He agreed, but after we installed, he was surprised to find that Ubuntu is immidietly ready. And, even more, he said that his Adobe-Photoshop will be worthless for Ubuntu. So, we just opened GIMP. He was stunned, to find out thar GIMP is free, and is readily usable!

[rocket16]

Then we installed the Driver for Printer via Internet, and everything is fine. He thanked us, but the real credit should go to developers of Ubuntu, and to you all too(I was inspired by the Community of Ubuntu, and this forum, so I myself switched to Linux ilast year). Additionally, many people, being aware of this incident, are eager to install Linux.

[rocket16]

As for Pidgin, I beg to state that most people in our locality do not have any Internet connection. So, a messenger is of no use to them. But thanks for the advice. I would surely include Pidgin, as soon as we find that most Computers get an Internet connection.

[P4man]

I don't know if its feasible, but if your community is rather densely populated, perhaps you could try setting up a peer 2 peer wireless (or even wired) network to share an internet connection. Getting the people there online might be a bigger advantage then having them use ubuntu. Just a thought... I wouldn't know how to make it work though, but it was one of the ideas behind the OLPC project.

[rocket16]

Actually, most of the people live quite far. So, such a device process, though marvellous, will have less effect here. We are thinking of setting up a simple Peer to Peer network using Twisted Pair-Cable. But that is still only thought.

[rocket16]

Nowadays, we have set up a system. That is, we download Updates and programmes of Ubuntu, and distribute then via USB Pendrives. First we use AptonCD to create an image of packages. Then we extract it, and get all the packages copied to The pendrive. Then, we send our friends (sometimes I also go, but not too often, since we have made a seperate Dep. in our Club for that), to the people who request us for Updates. Then we simply copy the packages, and use sudo dpkg -i *.deb command to update their Computers.

[rocket16]

On 19 Sep, 2009, we have arranged a competition. Actually, let me tell you the truth. Some Computer-Users here have set up a Windows Fan-Community. They simply oppose us, and often threaten to destroy our Club's Computer network and Ubuntu system using Virus. But Ubuntu is totally free from such irritations. They openly challenged us to compete against then using Ubuntu, against Windows-XP. We successfully drove off Windows-XP, and the Judges of the audience voted against them.

[rocket16]

We are sending a few people of our team, to compete against Windows Vista. They are telling that Vista will defeat Ubuntu, as it is more developed than XP. But earlier we defeated XP with 8.10 Version, and now we are sending Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty edition. So, I think there is no need to worry.

[rocket16]

But we are a little bit afraid, since some of them told us, that they will run Encarta. Our Pocket Wikipedia is nice, but can it really compete against Encarta? If not, please give me a tip, how to counter Encarta. If we triumph, many people will start using Ubuntu.In this week, we got 9 CDs (Blank) sent by various Users. We will have to copy Ubuntu to them, such that they may use it. So, we are fast developing.

[P4man]

Not sure whats up with the OS wars :s but if you want to help the people there get online, this might deserve some attention:
http://www.olsr.org/?q=about

it lets you create a wifi mesh; would seem like an ideal way to share internet connection among a community, without needing any cables or more expensive routers/repeaters. Every computer becomes a router and repeater using just a $10 wifi stick or card. Sounds more useful to me than "beating" windows users.

[rocket16]

Thanks for the link, I checked it out. It is reasonable, and I will announce this in our Club next weekend. And about the OS wars, sorry if I irritated you. It is simply a demonstration, in front of some students in the playground or Club, that Ubuntu is better then Windows. Then, many people will use it.

[stderr]

Haha the OS wars sound brilliant! Right up my street :D

Hmm, I'm not sure what to recommend for Encarta. I personally hate it, because I don't think much for its quality as an encyclopedia. I actually *much* prefer online wikipedia to encarta, and I'm not even a great fan of wikipedia...

edit: I had suggested trawling Wikipedia with a spider, but I just checked their policy, and they don't seem to approve of this one bit (i.e. they'll ban your IP)! Anyway, that would presents various problems in terms of making the acquired data usable. So I would recommend looking at this instead http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/2008-wikipedia-for-schools.htm and seeing if it may be of use to you. If you want more data, you can actually get (rather large) dumps direct from wikipedia here: http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20090909/

So far as wine goes, it's up to you. You could configure it such that it only has read/write access to the wine dir (normally ~/.wine/drive_c). Most viruses don't run successfully under wine anyway, but some do. *shrug* if you configure it so that wine isn't automatically associated with .exe files, then that should help somewhat too.

Ultimately, wine has access to the user's home directory because wine needs to be user-friendly; it's still down to the user choosing to execute a malicious file with wine. It is similar to downloading a malicious linux script and executing that. Ubuntu tries to get the user using software repos with trusted open-source software. The same principle applies to Windows and Windows .exes, except few users take the necessary precautions, most software is proprietary, and there aren't any software repos.

As I say, if you restrict wine such that it runs within a chroot jail, then the worst a malicious exe could do is infect... wine... which isn't necessarily that much of a problem, but setting it up in this way would a) restrict the usability of Windows applications running under wine, b) cause more work for you :) It's your call.

edit: There's also a script to get Brittanica encyclopedia 2004 running on Linux. Obviously, you're meant to purchase it (sigh), but here's the link: http://support.britannica.com/linux/linux.htm. I don't believe it applies to more recent versions than 2004.

[rocket16]

Great! Just checked out http://www.soschildrensvillages.org....or-schools.htm! This is a golden discovery! Thanks again, Friend Stderr! I think with your help, we will be able to defeat those Winfans shortly after!

[rocket16]

Additionally, we have decided to put Edubuntu Suite against Encarta! The thing is that, Edubuntu is free, but Encarta is not. Like I say repeatedly in our town, "Windows developers are businessmen, so there is no need to respect them. But Linux developers are heroes! When we use windows, there is no credit! But Using Linux surely does! And, when we are using Windows, we are just Customers. But use of Linux (esp. Ubuntu) links us to developers via a friendship community!"

[j7%<RmUg]

Well done, 300 people...

[Jimmyfj]

Hi - And congrats on the high number of converts.

I'm so privileged that I've tried the distro on which Ubuntu builds, Debian. If you consider making a "pro-edition" I'd consider Debian on the server side. Not that there's anything wrong about Ubuntu server, it's just that Debian server is so much more documented and wide spread.

The perfect combination could be Debian as main server for a start, until your skills on the server side is high enough to use Ubuntu Server Edition, which is not a server system beginners should consider.

Sure, what ever documentation exists for Debian also apply to Ubuntu Server Edit, but Debian is, in my opinion, more forgiving to errors than is Ubuntu.

That said - If you do jump in to a server remix, don't forget our wonderful servers forum here at ubuntuforums.

Just a thought :P

[rocket16]

Your tip is valuable! But one thing is there, that is, most people here are mostly Desktop users, and server need for them is not very much. So, we are mostly focusing on Desktop. But thanks for the information, after we convert 50% of Desktop-Users to Ubuntu-Users, we'll focus on Workstation. Earlier we went to our Cable networks office, and some of them are willing to accept Ubuntu.

[rocket16]

Our plan is simple, that is, the people here who got the Cable connection, always see the Windows screen while watching films on Cable-Channel. But if Ubuntu is used, then more and more people will gladly accept Ubuntu,s eeing its effects on the cable channel.

[rocket16]

The Cable Operators told earlier that they tried Ubuntu 8.10, but it could not play DVD or mp3 or Flv. So, I have decided to send a team of 3 People to install DVD and Mp3 plugins (along with Ubuntu System) onto their 9 Computers.

[rocket16]

Another requirement, is the internet access. But for Ubuntu, we can install the drivers via Cds or DVDs or Pen-Drives.

[rocket16]

We recently went to a village, about 3 KM From town. We saw there that most people, about 38 Computer Users, use Windows. One of them told us, that he tried Redhat and Mandriva, but they were all costly, and Redhat in Indian market costs Rs.7600, even more than Windows (XP: Rs.4999, Office:6,999 Vista:7,999, and Others). So, we are planning to go there again, and install Ubuntu alongside with Windows. This will make the number of Ubuntu users 300 + 38 + 9 (9 people this week have sent us blank cds to get Ubuntu copied into) = 347.

[rocket16]

In addition, is there a provision to include a GUI character of Tux in Ubuntu>? I mean, this will be a Tux-Penguin, who'll serve the same purpose as that of MS-Office-Assistant. This is intended to be an all-time companion, displaying Help and Support, Opening Locations (such as Home Folder) and showing animations.

[rocket16]

ASuch a nice move, will help us to popularise Ubuntu even more!

[rocket16]

Additionally, Upeople like GNOME better than KDE here, and so, we have included a number of Screenlets!

[rocket16]

Here is a screenshot of the default Desktop of the PC, after the installation of Ubuntu!128652

[chinmaya_n]

I think you 've not installed AWN !!
Its awesome !! Its very useful for our OS wars! :)
I mean in Windows they 've "radio dock" similar to AWN... but it is not 3D!! Our AWN is 3D! So definitely it will attract people!
you can give it as preinstalled, as it is of small size !!

edit: you can remove the bottom panel, if we use this AWN !!

[stderr]

What you're doing with regard to sending small support teams out, engaging the community etc. is fantastic - it's exactly the sort of community I'd like to be living in! However, in the UK, things just aren't really like that. Money is king, and people just don't seem to care that much about others. Such is the product of advanced capitalism, semi-global totalitarian governance, and huge populations packed into tiny areas :( Anyway, </rant>

Your screenshot looks great, and let us know how things go with the cable guys :D

As for Redhat/Mandriva etc, they're free just as Ubuntu is, in a sense... whilst RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux) costs money and is pretty expensive, there's the free equivalent, Fedora. Some people tend to describe Fedora these days as a test release for RHEL, because new features are rolled out into Fedora (for bug testing...) before they're stuck into RHEL, but nonetheless it's a popular distro. And there's the CentOS distro which is based on RHEL. With Mandriva, they release Madriva One free, but also offer Mandriva Powerpack as a pay for alternative. I believe it's the same as One but with support thrown in.

On the whole, with Linux, any pay for solution includes official support, and free ones don't. But any Linux vendor must legally provide the source code of their distro for free. So, even with the likes of RHEL, you can download the source code yourself, and compile it yourself. For free. :)

[aktiwers]

I also recommend taking a look at Gnome-Do. :)

[stderr]

I also recommend taking a look at Gnome-Do
I hadn't bothered with it before, but having tried it out now, I'm finding it very nice indeed. All the available plugins make it a highly useful tool. Cheers!

[eternalme]

great job done rocket16.