Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#21

Post by nshung » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:35 PM UTC

"For digital inclusion and a more inclusive future" as the author states in the article, I am also leading this[1] project for kids in Myanmar/Burma who literally stuck in the civil war between Myanmar Army and local rebel forces.[2] We are just a bunch of volunteers(refugees) from Myanmar who have been relocated to Norway because of the civil war. With Raspberry Pi, we want people to have access to basic education and literacy even in a freaking civil war zone. Never give up!

1. https://laizalibrary.org 2. http://time.com/3598969/kachin-independence-army-kia-burma-m...

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#22

Post by EGreg » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #15

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #12

"Remember that shitty computer we got when we were first came to the US?" -- Kids, recounting this experience in 15 years

"Remember that shitty computer we had 15 years ago?" -- Everybody

Indeed! Loved it

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#23

Post by jackgavigan » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

On a similar theme, Kano is a Linux-and-Raspberry Pi-based computer for children: http://www.kano.me/

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#24

Post by joshuapants » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #19

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #12

"Remember that shitty computer we got when we were first came to the US?" -- Kids, recounting this experience in 15 years

The CAME to the U.S., they weren't BORN here, so they don't have that ingrained elitist entitled attitude.

[citation needed]

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#25

Post by astrodust » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:49 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #15

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #12

"Remember that shitty computer we got when we were first came to the US?" -- Kids, recounting this experience in 15 years

"Remember that shitty computer we had 15 years ago?" -- Everybody

It's natural to have loving disdain for the things you had to make do with.

Share in the nostalgia.

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#26

Post by tdees40 » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:49 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #16

mwcampbell wrote: post #9

I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. I think to myself, don't they realize that it's pointless, that the year of the Linux desktop will never come, that Linux will always be the distant third-place desktop OS? More constructively, I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments…

> I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. As far as day to day use goes, modern desktop Linux environments are just as usable by end users as Windows. The main impediments to adoption tend to be: 1. Software that they need that only runs on Windows or OS X 2. Syncing to devices like iPods or…

"Just as usable by end users as Windows."

Have you seen a non-programmer install a printer on a Linux machine? It's terrifying.

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#27

Post by astrodust » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #10

mwcampbell wrote: post #9

I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. I think to myself, don't they realize that it's pointless, that the year of the Linux desktop will never come, that Linux will always be the distant third-place desktop OS? More constructively, I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments…

Linux distros like mint are basically indistinguishable from Windows to sufficiently casual users. All they ever do is open up the word processor or browser.

Google Docs and you don't even care about whatever word processor you have.

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#28

Post by radlad » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #10

mwcampbell wrote: post #9

I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. I think to myself, don't they realize that it's pointless, that the year of the Linux desktop will never come, that Linux will always be the distant third-place desktop OS? More constructively, I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments…

Linux distros like mint are basically indistinguishable from Windows to sufficiently casual users. All they ever do is open up the word processor or browser.

This. I know plenty of people who literally cannot tell any sufficiently user friendly distro of Linux from Windows.

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#29

Post by joshuapants » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

mwcampbell wrote: post #9

I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. I think to myself, don't they realize that it's pointless, that the year of the Linux desktop will never come, that Linux will always be the distant third-place desktop OS? More constructively, I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments…

> I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments actually run better on 10-year-old hardware than Windows 7

One of my main machines right now is an old HP workstation laptop that came out when Vista did. I can't run recent versions of Windows due to driver issues (random blue screens apparently due to the wifi driver; I only had a key for Windows 8.1 and the drivers were incompatible), but I can run Ubuntu perfectly fine out of the box with no special configuration required. In my opinion that is the biggest advantage to running old hardware with Linux - as long as you're not using oddball hardware there's a great chance it will run better than it would with Windows.

Re: Welcome to America: Here's Your Linux Computer

#30

Post by the_af » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

mwcampbell wrote: post #9

I have to admit I'm surprised to find that anyone is still trying to make desktop Linux work for normal people, i.e. non-programmers who aren't free-software fanatics. I think to myself, don't they realize that it's pointless, that the year of the Linux desktop will never come, that Linux will always be the distant third-place desktop OS? More constructively, I wonder if recent Linux distros and desktop environments…

For some users, the year of Linux on the desktop has already arrived (barring some problems like the ones lambda mentioned).

Now, I won't use myself as an example, because even though Linux fulfills almost every need (gaming, watching videos, programming, browsing the web, printing, burning DVDs), I'm aware I'm a power user. So it's probably not useful to mention I haven't used a Windows computer at home in more than a decade.

Therefore, I'll use my mom as an example instead: save a few exceptions, I could simply replace her laptop's Windows install with a user-friendly Linux distro (such as Ubuntu) and she wouldn't even notice. Maybe I'd have to tweak it a bit and install some useful software, and explain what some of the icons mean -- which is exactly what I did when I first installed Windows on her laptop. Honestly the biggest hurdle would probably be explaining to her the differences between LibreOffice and MS Office.