Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
On Sun, Nov 06, 2005 at 08:05:03AM +0200, Aaron wrote:
would I gain something from ubuntu?
I'd like to amplify Marc's answer. Ubuntu is sort of the "Windows" of
Linux. Instead of trying to make Linux look and act like Windows, as
in "Lindows", etc, the founders of the project aim to take an already
existing distro, Debian to be exact, and recreate or repackage it
into a Linux that anyone can use.
I assume most people on this list have installed Windows at one time
or another and are familar with its instalation. You boot from a CD,
put in a "magic number" answer a few questions and an hour later you
have a working system without a clue of how it got there.
This is fine as most users would not want a clue of what happened,
what choices were made, or what they could have gotten if they had
not taken a "typical" setup.
So Ubuntu is a Linux package with that in mind. It installs (or runs from
the CD) a working Linux system with very little user input. Instead of
the sparseness of Debian or the "richness" of SuSE or dead rat, it
is "lean and mean" but with the functions a new user would want.
For example, not knowing why to choose between twm, fvwm, Gnome or KDE,
makes a choice meaningless. So instead of offering it or going with
KDE, which may be nice, but has its costs, they went with Gnome.
It is also important to keep in mind that most of the world does not have
Pentium 4 or the AMD equivalent computers. I had several Pentium 133-166
computers in my basement and as I made working systems out of them and
offered them to the general public on a take them for free basis. I
received many replies from people who needed a computer and had no money.
Ubuntu is Linux for these people. While it will work well on a new, faster
system, and being based on debian anything can be installed with apt,
it works on what people have.
The have also raised money to give away CD's for free and encourage you
asking for more than one to hand them out.
While I expect that most people on this list would find it too simple
and confining, if you are asked to help someone get their computer
going, Ubuntu with Open Office is IMHO a much better solution than a
bootleg copy of Windows '98se and Office 98.
Two important points to note:
Ubuntu is not a static distribution, when you install it and later as
you use it, an internet connection is (almost) necessary.
The other is that there is no Hebrew version. Installing Hebrew support
is fairly easy. The result is an English system with Hebrew display and
text entry. If you don't read english you will be lost using it.
Geoff.
If using GDM, in the login screen you choose your UI's language.
You should've installed the language support during install ( pick a
first or a second language ) or by using Synaptic.
Everything else us up to the specific localization.
PS More important, where do I donate old computers? Personally, I'm not
sure what to donate and what to install. Is Ubuntu desktop, including
OO2.0 on PII 350 with 128mb and 8GB 5400GB disk appropriate?
--
Moish
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