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How To Get The Younger Generation Into Linux

Posted by InTheLoop on · 13 comments
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A while ago, Apple sold heavily discounted Macs to schools, hoping to get students to choose the Mac. Obviously, the same technique will not work for Linux, but it is important to get students interested in Linux.

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Comments (13)

I had the unexpected pleasure

tracyanne ·
of discovering a young(er) Linux users. I was picking up my usual collection of Linux magazines from our local newsagent, when the young lady behind the counter said to me "so you're the person who buys all the Linux magazines", I said I was, she told me she had told her dad, who has been using Linux for 15 years. She uses Linux too she said, and she hates Ubuntu. She told me they used to use Yoper, but now they use Sabayon, and she loves it. She said she's starting Uni next year and because so much of the required software runs only on Windows will be getting her dad to set up a dual boot machine for her.

Her dad, by the way doesn't even work in any IT related job, and never has, he's a truck driver.
helios ·
he's a truck driver....

Yet the jokes just keep on coming.

Q: Why did the trucker pass on the corn on the cob at dinner?

A: His wife was still using the teeth...

h
jacog ·
Hey, don't underestimate truck drivers - that's what James Cameron did for a living before he got into the movie business. I also got a ride once from Louisiana to North Carolina with a truck driver who was a biochemist. Says he got bored with being in one spot all the time.

tracyanne ·
This is a bit off topic. I've been playing around with a new MacBook, it makes a great Linux computer.

I've been trying out various Linux Live Cd distros on it, Mandriva 2008.1 (of course), Ubuntu 8.04, Linux Mint 4.0, Mandriva 2009.0, Sabayon.

I'm really impressed with the MacBook from a hardware perspective, I couldn't give a rats about the OS that comes with it, the only fly in the ointment is that it uses the broadcomm wireless card (they use the cheapest wireless card and still manage to charge the earth for their hardware)
techiem2 ·
LOL. Yeah, they way overcharge. When I was shopping for my laptop I actually looked at them. I would have had to spend about twice as much to get the same features/performance from an Apple as I get from my ZaReason.

And my neighbor's a truck driver too (though I haven't managed to get them on linux...).
tracyanne ·
I mentioned the fact that the blokes a truckie because you don't have to be a techie to appreciate Linux, the bloke's been using Linux longer than I have, twice as long.

One thing I noticed is that when you start using the various Linux distros on a high(er) end graphics card is how dowdy Ubuntu (it's standard deskrtop) appears to be in comparison to the other Linux distros. It looks really plain and boring, and the GNOME desktop doesn't help either, it looks cheap and unfinished.
tuxchick ·
TA, some of the most popular stories on Brand X are the ones about themes, Compiz/Beryl, and icon sets for Linux, so appearance is definitely important.
tracyanne ·
I just found out why the various hardware manufacturers only sell Microsoft products in Australia. There are no laws in Australia that require them to offer competing operating systems. Australian law in this respect is toothless.
lcafiero ·
Truth be told, helios drives a truck when he's not promoting FOSS to the universe.

Last time I checked -- and, believe me, I didn't look too closely -- he had all his teeth.
herzeleid ·
I used to drive a tundra - does that count?

Unix has arrived

u92 ·
As a younger user i understand the trouble with getting anyone to use Linux. I am a slack user my self and have been since 2000 when i got into building my own computers. Of course i had no money and got an old hand me down s-box. I went to buy a copy of windows and did not have enough cash to get it. But I saw a copy of red hat for free in a book that was 30.00 bucks and I always wondered what red hat was. I was imaging a command shell and black screen like the apples that I was brought up on. At first glance i was not impressed with the gui and a month latter i was installing my first copy of Slack. Not to mention the bloody 4 head and broken tows for the first few months. Much of the same for the last 8 years.

I have used almost every distro out their i can get my hands on over the years. Not one of them would i ever feel comfortable getting a windows user to exchange to. But finally i ran accost PC-BSD 7. with the KDE 4.1 gui. It is so easy to use its unreal. Any basic user would have no problem on the system. And they may be looking to see what else is out their Like i did. But its like anything else they see Billy Gates out their pumping hype about a new bag of tricks and the masses eat it up. When the public access terminals get large and people realize that their little GPS in their car and all the web servers are running a Linux kernel things will change. I hope All i user windows for now a days is to run vm-ware. Its a perfect layer of protection. Oops I mean fuzzing lol. KEEP YOUR DATA FREE, USE FREE BSD.
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herzeleid ·
FreeBSD is cool, I've used it in the past and found it to be quite stable and complete - and from what I can see, FreeBSD seems to form the basis of OS X.

IMHO FreeBSD no longer enjoys the huge scalability and stability advantage it once held over linux (not because fbsd slipped, but because linux got better) but FreeBSD is no slouch and certainly a solid OS.

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