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Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

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Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#41

There have been numerous attempts to move to open source in Russia. Most of them failed. Example: Linux in schools. 1. Teachers don't know much about linux 2. Computers aren't fast enough to work with GNOME (which is default in most packages they install) 3. Kids don't get it. Open office is the only familiar-looking application there. 4. They won't be able to apply their skills anywhere add: 5. Microsoft makes some…

January 1st, 2011 most of Microsoft products used in Russian schools will expire their licenses. No deals were made to prolong licenses.

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see those being setbacks, but on each point: 1. I'm not sure on the situation in Russia, but in the US, a lot of teachers don't know much about Windows or OS X either, but unless something breaks they wouldn't have to. 2. Gnome's memory footprint is rather large, sadly. Depending on whether the Russian authorities roll their own custom distro or image though, they could use XFCE instead. 3. As things move more…

Yup, every point is solvable. Thinking of how life changed between 2007 and now, I can imagine how in 2013 we'd have linux in bigger cities, but not earlier. 1. I believe you still need someone to maintain the system and someone to teach how to use it. This makes a requirement of at least one unix specialist (informatics teacher) per school. Takes a lot of time to train them but not impossible. 2. Probably faster har…

1. we had a Linux specialist in a small town high-school in Eastern Europe in 1998, a time when we barely had Internet access

5. I never saw a comprehensive costs analysis of Windows versus Linux that wasn't sponsored by Microsoft, which makes me believe this is a myth perpetuated by people too conservative to change even small habits (if it wasn't for the social factor, I would home-school my child)

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#43
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see those being setbacks, but on each point: 1. I'm not sure on the situation in Russia, but in the US, a lot of teachers don't know much about Windows or OS X either, but unless something breaks they wouldn't have to. 2. Gnome's memory footprint is rather large, sadly. Depending on whether the Russian authorities roll their own custom distro or image though, they could use XFCE instead. 3. As things move more…

2. Gnome's memory footprint is rather large, sadly. It is? I do quite a bit of work inside an ubuntu installation on VirtualBox that is setup for a maximum of 1gb ram and it seems to work fine (I haven't seen a computer with less than 1gb of RAM installed in years, but I've also never been to a Russian school, so who knows). A default ubuntu installation with the gnome desktop loaded up shows about 800mb free out of…

Yeah I keep hearing this too, but it's not accurate now and probably hasn't for some time. I run Gnome/Debian on a Toshiba Laptop Satellite 1600 with 384 Mb of SDRam with Gnome running and Chromium WebBrowser v10, HTop shows 267/384 Mb being used. This is with Gnome/Metacity. With Gnome/Openbox it's even less.

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Gnome's memory footprint is rather large, sadly. It is? I do quite a bit of work inside an ubuntu installation on VirtualBox that is setup for a maximum of 1gb ram and it seems to work fine (I haven't seen a computer with less than 1gb of RAM installed in years, but I've also never been to a Russian school, so who knows). A default ubuntu installation with the gnome desktop loaded up shows about 800mb free out of…

Yeah I keep hearing this too, but it's not accurate now and probably hasn't for some time. I run Gnome/Debian on a Toshiba Laptop Satellite 1600 with 384 Mb of SDRam with Gnome running and Chromium WebBrowser v10, HTop shows 267/384 Mb being used. This is with Gnome/Metacity. With Gnome/Openbox it's even less.

On my 256 MB notebook I wasn't able to install Ubuntu with Gnome. I could be that 384 MB is enough, as I had better luck with 512 MB computer. As far as I know Windows XP can install on 64 MB, that's six times less than 384 MB.

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#45
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I keep hearing this too, but it's not accurate now and probably hasn't for some time. I run Gnome/Debian on a Toshiba Laptop Satellite 1600 with 384 Mb of SDRam with Gnome running and Chromium WebBrowser v10, HTop shows 267/384 Mb being used. This is with Gnome/Metacity. With Gnome/Openbox it's even less.

On my 256 MB notebook I wasn't able to install Ubuntu with Gnome. I could be that 384 MB is enough, as I had better luck with 512 MB computer. As far as I know Windows XP can install on 64 MB, that's six times less than 384 MB.

Yes, but practically how many of us use a computer with 64mb of ram (or even 256mb)?

Also, if you're ok with installing an older version of windows there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux (I used linux on a 100Mhz Pentium with 16mb ram just fine back in the day).

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#46
post #45
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my 256 MB notebook I wasn't able to install Ubuntu with Gnome. I could be that 384 MB is enough, as I had better luck with 512 MB computer. As far as I know Windows XP can install on 64 MB, that's six times less than 384 MB.

Yes, but practically how many of us use a computer with 64mb of ram (or even 256mb)? Also, if you're ok with installing an older version of windows there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux (I used linux on a 100Mhz Pentium with 16mb ram just fine back in the day).

> there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux

We argument here if Gnome needs "too much" memory so that you need a relatively new computer to use it, and I gave the arguments for that, narrowing down the amount of memory needed and comparing it with still very useful and widely used XP.

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#47
post #46
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but practically how many of us use a computer with 64mb of ram (or even 256mb)? Also, if you're ok with installing an older version of windows there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux (I used linux on a 100Mhz Pentium with 16mb ram just fine back in the day).

> there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux We argument here if Gnome needs "too much" memory so that you need a relatively new computer to use it, and I gave the arguments for that, narrowing down the amount of memory needed and comparing it with still very useful and widely used XP.

Yes, but a debian version from several years ago (with gnome!) is also still very useful and would probably not demand more resources than xp.

The question was - why is it legitimate in this argument to use an old version of windows but nut an old version of linux?

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#48
post #47
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is nothing stopping you from installing an older distribution of linux We argument here if Gnome needs "too much" memory so that you need a relatively new computer to use it, and I gave the arguments for that, narrowing down the amount of memory needed and comparing it with still very useful and widely used XP.

Yes, but a debian version from several years ago (with gnome!) is also still very useful and would probably not demand more resources than xp. The question was - why is it legitimate in this argument to use an old version of windows but nut an old version of linux?

> why is it legitimate in this argument to use an old version of windows but nut an old version of linux

Again, please don't change the topic, we are talking about Gnome, not about Linux in general. Linux kernel runs on my router with 16 MB RAM without any problems. Gnome is simply made without enough attention for configurations with limited resources, it's just so. There are other managers, of course. That's why huertanix mentioned XFCE.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_d...

Footprints (at the time of the writing): GNOME: ~180 MB, Xfce: ~15 MB

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#49
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I keep hearing this too, but it's not accurate now and probably hasn't for some time. I run Gnome/Debian on a Toshiba Laptop Satellite 1600 with 384 Mb of SDRam with Gnome running and Chromium WebBrowser v10, HTop shows 267/384 Mb being used. This is with Gnome/Metacity. With Gnome/Openbox it's even less.

On my 256 MB notebook I wasn't able to install Ubuntu with Gnome. I could be that 384 MB is enough, as I had better luck with 512 MB computer. As far as I know Windows XP can install on 64 MB, that's six times less than 384 MB.

Should have tried Debian; they have an optional text based installer that probably would have enabled you to complete the install.

Re: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my 256 MB notebook I wasn't able to install Ubuntu with Gnome. I could be that 384 MB is enough, as I had better luck with 512 MB computer. As far as I know Windows XP can install on 64 MB, that's six times less than 384 MB.

Should have tried Debian; they have an optional text based installer that probably would have enabled you to complete the install.

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