So, how do you "spread the word" about Linux (Ubuntu or other?)

[AllFather]

I have personally always had at least one box running Linux since 1996, and for those of you new to Linux: Thank your lucky star you didn’t start back then :D.

Anyhow, After working along time in the it department of a rather large Norwegian company (about 5billion us a year revenue) where we actually ran our first web shop out of Linux box (it’s still up and running, not in use though, but roughly 3 years uptime now), I quit due to long hours, lots of work and no life outside of it to speak of.

My family (mainly father and mother) are moving to Turkey in January 2007 and I was then asked to take over the store, and so I have done :)

As we sell games and such I had always had a few home burned disks with Linux in a shelf I gave away for free, but when I after a time lurking around on Ubuntu forums I noticed the Shipit service they provided (for free I might add).

I ordered a few cds, and in about 3 weeks time I had them at my place.
I started giving them out in the store, and since then I have given away every cd I have gotten (both 386/A64 & ppc). I also recently started having giving customers who buy stuff from our website the option to get a Ubuntu cd for free :)

So far (as the web store is rather new) I have given away 8 cds that way, not to shabby I think :)


Have other people done the something similar, or tried to spread Linux to the “common man” ?


-Thomas
(Sorry for any writing and/or spelling errors, as you might have noticed, I’m Norwegian by birth, and English is thus not my native tongue. J

[chriscando]

I am curious for ideas too. I ordered 25 from shipit and passed them out to people in the Computer science department at school (University of California Santa Barbara). Ive also thought about setting up a table and offering it to people downtown, also to answer questions. Dont know what kind of response I would get, curious if anyone else has done something simular.

[gingermark]

I personally feel it's more important to spread the word about open source software and open file standards - the latter especially. I think as such ideas become more and more acceptable in the mainstream then Linux will follow on as a result.

[KLineD]

When I get my CDs I always keep one for me (been doing so since I got my first warty CD). The others I give them away. When I was in university I would carry them in my backpack and whenever someone started the linux topic or complained about how much they hated they current operating system I would give them a corresponding CD be it x86, amd64 or PPC. Obviously I've given more x86 than anything else...

Now that I finished my career and I'm working I bring the CDs to my workplace and just share them with the curious, but with every release, more and more people are doing the same now I'm not the only one with ubuntu CDs at here and that's great.

[polo_step]

I personally feel it's more important to spread the word about open source software and open file standards - the latter especially. I think as such ideas become more and more acceptable in the mainstream then Linux will follow on as a result.
That's probably true and a good point.

End-user desktop Linux doesn't need promotion, it needs development ($$$).

Right now, promoting it to non-users is just like serving your unexpecting guests half-cooked food: A few may get it down, a few weirdos may actually like it -- but the vast majority will just stop being your friends. ;)

Where Linux really works -- in running servers, industrial imbedded systems, etc. -- it's doing great. The reason it's failing in end-user desktop, where it has less than one percent of the market, is simply because it's not good enough.

It's that simple. The market doesn't lie; when desktop Linux is truly and transparently competitive with the dominant OS, promotion will be unnecessary. It will just be a matter of letting the dog see the rabbit.

That will never happen until the whole concept of open-source is made attractive enough to some source of <<Huge Money>> to fund the serious development of desktop Linux that it absolutely requires to be a serious market contender. Ultimately, talent and ability follows money -- and there isn't remotely enough of it in end-user desktop Linux at the moment.

[gingermark]

The reason it's failing in end-user desktop, where it has less than one percent of the market, is simply because it's not good enough.

I have to disagree. I think a distribution like Ubuntu is good enough for everyday desktop use. There are many issues related to Linux Desktop uptake, and I feel the most important one is exposure.

Right now, most people are exposed to Windows first. In libraries, at school, at work. But as more governmental organisations take on Linux (which is starting to happen) and more people are exposed to it in these sorts of environments I believe things will change.

It will take time though. But that is time of course for a great OS to get even better :)

[polo_step]

I have to disagree. I think a distribution like Ubuntu is good enough for everyday desktop use.
The total experience is all that matters, not the little pieces.

You give some typical user of a general-purpose home box a Ubuntu CD and at the very best you'll get a call this next day:

"Hey, I installed that CD you gave me, but my ___ , ____ , _____ , ____ and ___ don't work any more. What's up with that?"

Never mind that he's also lost some degree of functionality in the Linux programs that replaced his primary ones in XP.

When you don't get those calls any more, then the distribution is ready for the public, but not until.

[gingermark]

I don't think the process of installing and setting up Linux is comparable with using Windows.

If you installed and set up Ubuntu for that user, I think they'd get on with it pretty well. But we'll have to agree to disagree as I'm off to sleep! :)

Happy Dapper Day!

[BoyOfDestiny]

The total experience is all that matters, not the little pieces.

You give some typical user of a general-purpose home box a Ubuntu CD and at the very best you'll get a call this next day:

"Hey, I installed that CD you gave me, but my ___ , ____ , _____ , ____ and ___ don't work any more. What's up with that?"

Never mind that he's also lost some degree of functionality in the Linux programs that replaced his primary ones in XP.

When you don't get those calls any more, then the distribution is ready for the public, but not until.

Well, depends on their hardware and the general usage of this home user. If average desktop use is surfing the net, writing papers, listening to music, etc. Not a big deal. Much of the software may have more functionality (i.e. firefox vs ie6.) You just hand hold them a little, tell them to use Add/Remove applications to install some new apps. Some habits will have to be changed...

Also, where do you get the information regarding the Desktop Linux market share (in your other post), it seems to be around/higher than OS X, yet I can never find a good source.

All I know is Ubuntu has 2+ million users...
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1641688111;fp;16;fpid;0

[moclippa]

I blog about it... I tried passing a few cds, but people always look at me wearily when I mention Linux. I still think that Ubuntu may be intimidating for a lot of people who are used to point and click, mostly if they didn't grow up with Dos mentality. But I love it, I've only had it for a month, but since I got it organized I haven't used my XP partition at all... (had to use it yesterday to access forums after the GLX problem a lot of people had, and it was tremendously slow to boot... disgusting... I was screaming at the screen for 5 minutes till I was finally able to load up Firefox, bulkware up the wazoo)

But regardless of the intimidation for point-click users I still try to push them towards open source projects. Namely OpenOffice.org, I figure if we start them out on stuff thats more familiar to them it'll give them enough intrest to tackle the Ubuntu learning curve. But the benifits are tremendous, its free, great community, and a great deal of customization options, relatively secure.

Whatever... now that I have my Ubuntu as nice as it looks, with Compix Xgl well on its way to becoming standard, and the offical Dapper Drake release in a few hours, Ubuntu is looking to make an even bigger splash then it already has!

[polo_step]

Well, depends on their hardware and the general usage of this home user... Some habits will have to be changed...

Sure, but we can't always be "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb" here.

The market is what it is. If general-purpose, desktop Linux is to really be "competitive," that means that it has to work as easily on as much different stuff -- or it means nothing at all.

There are funded general-purpose programs -- like Firefox -- that have been ported to Linux as well as XP and there are a tiny few hardware manufacturers who have tried to produce Linux drivers that are as good as their XP drivers (and kept them proprietary). These are the exceptions, unfortunately, but without them, desktop Linux would be even deeper in a hole than it is.

More common is the hassle I'm facing, namely that the manufacturers of my hardware released Linux drivers to the "community" for further integration into distributions TWO YEARS AGO and that integration foundered in geekfights, forks and sloth. Money tightens up development discipline. If you don't want to pay professionals, you get the unemployable untergeek riffraff who just want to argue adolescent philosophy and sulk instead of producing coherent projects on time.

Ubuntu works as well as it does because there was some money and management in the project.


Also, where do you get the information regarding the Desktop Linux market share (in your other post), it seems to be around/higher than OS X, yet I can never find a good source.
I agree that almost all these "statistics" are indeed procrustean nonsense someone pulled out of his fundament. A fairly lengthy discussion on Digg seemed to indicate the most accepted figure for primary desktop actual usage in the US is around 3% for Apple and 1% for all desktop Linux distributions. I personally suspect these are a little generous, but I don't know how anyone except perhaps Google would really know, based on the ubiquity of their site and the certainty that they are script-recording stuff like OS, browser, screen resolution, etc. from every click...and they're not telling anyone who isn't paying big bucks for the information and signing non-disclosure clauses.

While I wouldn't doubt for a minute that maybe there were two million Ubuntu CDs distributed or downloaded, I would utterly sceptical that there are actually two million people using Ubuntu as their primary OS.

[aysiu]

The market is what it is. If general-purpose, desktop Linux is to really be "competitive," that means that it has to work as easily on as much different stuff -- or it means nothing at all. No, because normal people don't install operating systems. Normal people don't install Windows.

If general-purpose, desktop Linux is to be competitive, people have to buy Linux-preloaded computers, businesses have to start using Linux, and schools have to start using Linux.

I can count on one hand the number of people I know in real life (not in the forums here) who have taken a Windows installer CD and installed Windows from scratch on a computer that the CD did not come with.

[polo_step]

No, because normal people don't install operating systems. Normal people don't install Windows.
In this thread, we're talking about distributing Linux to people, not buying it installed, though.

If general-purpose, desktop Linux is to be competitive, people have to buy Linux-preloaded computers, businesses have to start using Linux, and schools have to start using Linux.
That's all true to some extent -- though I would never consider nor recommend being taught in the non-dominant OS or in non-dominant applications.

There are some unique problems and opportunities for employing business desktop Linux and I should like to discuss them here sometime as I haven't heard them addressed previously.


I can count on one hand the number of people I know in real life (not in the forums here) who have taken a Windows installer CD and installed Windows from scratch on a computer that the CD did not come with.
Strange. My experience is exactly the contrary, but I've been using computers since the CP/M days and my acquaintances almost uniformly build their own boxes and install their own software, which as likely as not they've hacked or cracked.

In any case, even people who do buy their systems ready-made do add and upgrade hardware, and that's where the problems arise with Linux, as so little current, right-now hardware and peripherals are transparently supported.:(

[aysiu]

Clearly you and I run in different circles.

And, you're right--we were discussing evangelism or "spreading the word." And, in that sense, you're right. That's why I don't evangelize or spread the word.

The people I know are ordinary computer users. They don't build their own computers. They don't install their own operating systems. The only way they'd be perfect for Linux or Ubuntu would be if I installed and configured it for them and then trained them in a few of the differences. Then, of course, if anything went wrong, instead of cursing the computer or Dell or Microsoft... they'd curse me.

[Onyros]

I let my laptop do the work for me. Just today a technician from my ISP visiting (I've been having connection problems) stared at the screen in utter dismay, and asked me what the hell I had running here... When I told him it was a Linux distro called Ubuntu his jaw fell to his knee.

As he later proceeded to tell me, he thought Linux was a black screen with white characters displayed in a chaotic sequence much like the Matrix (tm).

I ended up burning a Dapper RC CD for him to try out at home, but I've converted several people in this manner... just letting them try out the great usability of Ubuntu.

I managed to install Ubuntu at work (well, I don't work there anymore, I've established myself working at home, but I meant my former job), where I was an advertising copywriter... Mac OS X was the norm, but there was one dead and soon to be thrown away PC with Windows ME... after I formatted the hard drive and installed Ubuntu, it's been used by pretty much anyone for web related purposes (email, internet browsing, those kinds of things; the boss used to play Mahjongg there, too :P)

I've managed to convince my wife to dual-boot Ubuntu and XP, and now she only uses XP when she's editing her pics (with Photoshop CS2, the GIMP just doesn't cut it for her), she spends the majority of the time on Ubuntu, she's an amaroK fan-girl, too.

I've just rescued another old PC from getting dumped, and old Pentium III with enough RAM to run Ubuntu properly (around 384MB) on Fluxbox, set it up as easily as it can get for my father to use at home. And this is someone who has never messed with a computer before in his entire life. He's more than happy with that setup ;)

I am not for proselitism, but I think we all like to garner our friends and family's interest to things we like, we use and we'd prefer them to use as well, because they're just... better? :P

Ubuntu Dapper has been a major step ahead, and I'll spread the word whenever I can, I'll express how satisfied I am with it, and how I can no longer use a computer without it.

[briancurtin]

the only spreading i do is through the two Arch shirts i own. im not really friends with anyone who is too into computers that doesnt already know about linux. i had a friend ask to use my SuSE discs a while back since the box set was up on my shelf, but i dont go out telling people about it. ive been more "successful" in getting people to try linux by not even doing anything at all actually, other than using it myself.

[shaft350x]

I've shared it with several friends and family. The "eye-candy" is usually a real big draw, heck its one of the things that gave me the extra push to check it out.

Another big draw for me was that I was already using Firefox and OpenOffice.org. So I was familiar with them, additionally I had been using Trillian for my IMing so jumping to GAIM was simple, and I also had a free copy of Serif Photo Plus, so having GIMP instead of PhotoShop was not a problem for me. I think really sharing the Open Source stuff that works independent of platform is a good way to show people some of the benefits of Open Source and what linux can offer without them having to come out of their comfort zone until they are ready.

I think that with Gutsy making more things accessible through a GUI (like video settings and Xorg) will make it much easier for people to use. Yes I know for some people this might seem like "dumbing it down" for Windows users, but the more "out of the box" and "simple" it is, the easier it is for people to stick with it.

My wife, and a friend of mine now also have linux systems. I'm sure there will be more.

[Mazza558]

This is thread necromancy!

I realised something was up when I read "Dapper Drake will be released in a few hours" ... wait, what? :p

[Saphira]

I spread the word one instructor and fellow student at a time. :) i figure if the tech schools around here aren't going to even acknowledge it I'll do it for them.

[shaft350x]

This is thread necromancy!

I realised something was up when I read "Dapper Drake will be released in a few hours" ... wait, what? :p

Hehehe, yeah well it's not my fault that whenever one goes to post the boards conveniently show you similar threads...

"thread necromancy"...I like that...muahaha *cough* *choke* *sputter* so my "evil" laugh could use some work...

[Johnsie]

On my HP laptop I could show people allt the 3d stuff and that blew them away. Then I got a Fujitsu laptop with a Via Chrome9 graphics card so now I cant show off the 3d.

The problem with Linux is still that it doesnt support enough hardware and getting unsupported hardware to work can be very difficult.