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German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

efytimes.com

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Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#31

Post by tehwalrus »

jtome wrote: post #19
sanbor wrote: post #14

I would suggest the Trisquel distro, which is completely free software (it's officially sponsored by the FSF) and IMHO the desktop is more user friendly than Lubuntu. http://trisquel.info/

Some of the primary things people use computers for are watching flash videos and listening to mp3s and I would rather people use 99% Free software and 1% proprietary software than the other way around because someone zelously recommended to them a 100% Free Distro, which they found unusable and then switched back to windows. One of my worst experiences when starting out with Linux was installing Debian on a laptop,…

tried this recently on a macbook air without an ethernet port - it's actually not even as simple as downloading the relevant .deb on a flash drive and moving it over, as the default .deb will, sometimes, insist on downloading the actual firmware blob from the manufacturer during the install process! I refuse to pay for a USB ethernet adapter which I will use once, so I'm sticking with virtual machines for now.

I agree, normal humans simply don't put up with this stuff - in the end, even I didn't!

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#32

Post by jeffclark »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #16

There are some admirable intentions here, but most of the older people I know that this would theoretically serve best are infinitely better served by a light tablet. I want my grandma checking her e-mail and doing her reading in the most comfortable environment/seat in the house; I suspect this will lead to a lot greater usage/engagement. And portability means it's easier to ask for help.

You're not wrong, but continue your thought process and think bigger picture.

If you do actual research on older computer users, you'll see that many prefer a desktop environment for the sole reason that they can get a monster monitor.

"But my Grandma!" you might say, and you might be right.

But expand your dataset and you'll start to understand why desktops and iMacs haven't become obsolete.

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#34

Post by swah »

keithpeter wrote: post #2

"Lubuntu can comfortably run on as little as 256MB of RAM." It can although I'd call it jogging rather than running. It can work on a P3 coppermine class laptop very nicely. However, a stock Lubuntu live CD does not come with LibreOffice. Gnumeric is a nice spreadsheet, but Abiword normally does not have built in facilities for mathematical formulas, or for making drawings. There appears [1] to be no presentation app…

Quite sincerely, I just tried switching to Ubuntu 13.04 (from Win7) on my gaming machine (4GB Ram, some Nvidia card that I can play BF3 very well), and it doesn't "Run" like Windows either.

Chrome is slow to start, videos don't load properly, ejecting the pendrive fails...

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#35

Post by Spooky23 »

hiddenfeatures wrote: post #6

Wait... That's what I am paying my taxes for? That's where my money goes? I am NOT against Linux being more widely used. And I like the idea that the city uses Linux to save money & more efficient. But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business

Windows 8 is cratering new PC adoption -- many people, especially folks who are not technically adept, hate it.

So a German government decided to invest a small amount of money to help citizens utilize an alternative to insecure Windows XP.

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#36

Post by muuh-gnu »

skaevola wrote: post #22
muuh-gnu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business Why not? The goverment standardizes everything else, from screws to seat belts to yogurts, why not stop the crazy update-planned-obsolescence cycle pushed by commercial entities and agree on a "standard UI" for normal people? The amount of unnecessary changes in UIs has become unbearably crazy. And since those changes are forced from all sides, there is n…

Most standards are not set by the government, they're set by professional organizations. See ANSI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Ins... Safety standards ARE often set by the government, but more general standards mostly are not. By the way, the position you're arguing for is literally the opposite of innovation. Imagine if, after Apple unveiled the iPhone, the government had discouraged its…

> the position you're arguing for is literally the opposite of innovation.

So what? I dont see any innovation here. It is haute couture like change for changes sake masqueraded as innovation.

Computers have become too important tools to allow a few key players to enforce a crazy planned obsolescence cycle.

> Imagine if, after Apple unveiled the iPhone

I was not talking about toys.

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#37

Post by NoodleIncident »

swah wrote: post #34
keithpeter wrote: post #2

"Lubuntu can comfortably run on as little as 256MB of RAM." It can although I'd call it jogging rather than running. It can work on a P3 coppermine class laptop very nicely. However, a stock Lubuntu live CD does not come with LibreOffice. Gnumeric is a nice spreadsheet, but Abiword normally does not have built in facilities for mathematical formulas, or for making drawings. There appears [1] to be no presentation app…

Quite sincerely, I just tried switching to Ubuntu 13.04 (from Win7) on my gaming machine (4GB Ram, some Nvidia card that I can play BF3 very well), and it doesn't "Run" like Windows either. Chrome is slow to start, videos don't load properly, ejecting the pendrive fails...

Did you get the proprietary drivers for that Nvidia card?

They can't legally be included in the distro itself, you have to go get them, which is a shame.

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#38

Post by dllthomas »

mtgx wrote: post #15
keithpeter wrote: post #2

"Lubuntu can comfortably run on as little as 256MB of RAM." It can although I'd call it jogging rather than running. It can work on a P3 coppermine class laptop very nicely. However, a stock Lubuntu live CD does not come with LibreOffice. Gnumeric is a nice spreadsheet, but Abiword normally does not have built in facilities for mathematical formulas, or for making drawings. There appears [1] to be no presentation app…

I think at this point the apps themselves have a bigger impact than the OS. Websites can easily take 50-100 MB of RAM these days, each . Open a few of those, and you can already slow down your PC with low RAM. All of these "low-end" operating systems should have at least 1 GB of RAM as the bare minimum, and something with a more modern OS like Ubuntu or Windows 7 should use at least 2 GB of RAM, otherwise you have th…

Eh, just run Lynx...

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#39

Post by yuhong »

keithpeter wrote: post #2

"Lubuntu can comfortably run on as little as 256MB of RAM." It can although I'd call it jogging rather than running. It can work on a P3 coppermine class laptop very nicely. However, a stock Lubuntu live CD does not come with LibreOffice. Gnumeric is a nice spreadsheet, but Abiword normally does not have built in facilities for mathematical formulas, or for making drawings. There appears [1] to be no presentation app…

This reminds me that the i815 chipset is limited to 512MB RAM total, which was used in lots of P3 systems.

Re: German City Set To Make Linux A Norm For Citizens

#40

Post by yuhong »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21
muuh-gnu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tablets, like mobiles generally sufferer from planned obsolescence. They are not meant to be used and receive updates for years and years, like people used XP. I want my grandma to not have to relearn to yet another UI every two years. Canonical has commited to support the LTS releases for half a decade, which, while not coparable to XP, is for older folks still a better bet than anything the mobile world has to offe…

As I understand it, XP wasn't meant to do that either; the fact that it lasted so long was more of a series of mistakes on Microsoft's part in getting a replacement out the door. I'm happy to be corrected, though.

Even if Vista wasn't delayed, XP would have received security update support for at least 10 years after release.
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