VanLUG Email Archive
Here's some talking points for the demo guys. I know
you have specific demos planned but here's some things
you may want to consider going over before you get
into whatever demo you're doing.
<!- begin ->
What are you demo'ing?
Linux is a unix-like operating system. It was orginally
coded by Linus Torvalds and now is maintained by him and others
around the world.
What's an OS?
Paraphrasing from A. Tanenbaum Modern OSs : An operating system is
a piece of software that provides a layer of abstaction between the
computer hardware and an application.
Why would I install linux? / Why the hell would I do this to my computer?
Functionality:
Linux can do 75% of the things you do in an average day on a
computer:
Commercial
Workstation
Faxing
email
word proceseing
Server
smtp server
odbc server
http server
fax gateway
router
Residencial
Email
Games
Web surfing
real audio
mp3's
Stability:
Linux is one of the most stable OSs in existance today. This
is most likely due to the fact that it's source code is availiable to
anyone. Hence if you find a bug and are adept enough to fix it, you
can. You cannot do this with most(if not all) commercial OSs. By no
means is linux the only OS with this property, however it is the most
popular.
Politics:
Everyone agrees that competition, in general, is good for the
consumer. The major destop OS holds a monopoly in this area. By supporting
a free alternate you are taking the first step toward ensuring more choice
in the future. < insert you favourite rant here >
//end
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|R Garth Wood | Sigma notation is for suckers!|
| | -R G Wood|
| |