Hello,
I just wanted to share two pieces of information that I hope everybody who do FS advocacy would know:
1) If the target uses Windows and has no experience with Free Software, give them a VALO-CD. See www.valo-cd.net for details (in English)
2) If the person already uses some FS, and you want them to make a strategic decision to always us FS, suggest them to buy a pre-installed Linux-laptop. This way their experience is likely to be happy and at the same time they contribute in the process of "voting with their money" to show laptop manufacturers that Linux support is important.
My own favorite is the Dell XPS 13, which comes with Ubuntu preinstalled but you can replace the distro with your favorite as the drivers are open and custom kernel is public at Launchpad.net. Details at http://seravo.fi/2013/dell-xps-13-ubuntu-edition-first-impressions
A long and updated list of pre-installed laptops available is at http://linuxpreloaded.com/
2013/9/28 Otto Kekäläinen otto@fsfe.org
My own favorite is the Dell XPS 13, which comes with Ubuntu preinstalled but you can replace the distro with your favorite as the drivers are open and custom kernel is public at Launchpad.net. Details at http://seravo.fi/2013/dell-xps-13-ubuntu-edition-first-impressions
It's the last laptop I bought :-) I've installed Debian and it works great. You don't need the kernel at Launchpad but you should use a recent kernel (3.4 or newer) which supports Cypress pad.
On 28/09/13 15:23, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
Hello,
I just wanted to share two pieces of information that I hope everybody who do FS advocacy would know:
- If the target uses Windows and has no experience with Free
Software, give them a VALO-CD. See www.valo-cd.net for details (in English)
- If the person already uses some FS, and you want them to make a
strategic decision to always us FS, suggest them to buy a pre-installed Linux-laptop. This way their experience is likely to be happy and at the same time they contribute in the process of "voting with their money" to show laptop manufacturers that Linux support is important.
These are good tips. One of the leading strategies that I've seen in corporate sales (involving free and proprietary solutions) is to focus on problems: what are the biggest problems facing the person or business? They may not always be obvious IT problems either.
At one point, I was in the headquarters of a large international corporation at a meeting of the IT heads from every business division. Some prominent open source products had made it onto the agenda. Top of the list was Firefox.
Basically, this is large group of some 30 people for whom time is in very short supply. For them to get together and sacrifice even 10 minutes discussing a single topic only happens when there is a burning problem that can't be ignored.
To cut to the chase, they didn't get together to discuss Firefox out of sentimental reasons: they were discussing it because, like every big corporation, they had a problem migrating web-apps from IE6 to IE8 as there is no way a big company can just migrate all their in-house web-apps in one day.
Many people had proposed Firefox as a solution and one argument was the fact that it is easier to support concurrent installation of IE6+Firefox than IE6+IE8. The proposed solution: staff would access the upgraded apps with Firefox and legacy apps through IE6 over a period of months/years while the migration work was completed.
So my advice would be: don't hope for every user to make a strategic solution right away. Make a list of known problems, like IE6, privacy, inconvenience managing license keys, proprietary vendors offering support by 0900 number, and have a list of open source solutions next to each problem. They may let you solve some of their problems first and then when they see the pattern, they will think open source strategy was their own conclusion.
For those aiming at a niche market, the problems are more bespoke. There are also common problems across all industries that are probably easily shared through a wiki or this list.
On 09/28/2013 03:23 PM, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
Hello,
I just wanted to share two pieces of information that I hope everybody who do FS advocacy would know:
- If the target uses Windows and has no experience with Free
Software, give them a VALO-CD. See www.valo-cd.net for details (in English)
This is a good initiative, and very useful. Back in 2010, I did a talk at a seminar held by the Danish union HK on "Free Software for Microsoft Windows" where I ended by handing out OpenDisc, http://www.theopendisc.com/, a related project, but in English (and currently not very active, it seems). The particpants were very happy about receiving all that software and also started asking questions about GNU/Linux systems and how to get them without my having to mention it.
* Otto Kekäläinen otto@fsfe.org [2013-09-28 16:23:02 +0300]:
- If the person already uses some FS, and you want them to make a
strategic decision to always us FS, suggest them to buy a pre-installed Linux-laptop. This way their experience is likely to be happy and at the same time they contribute in the process of "voting with their money" to show laptop manufacturers that Linux support is important.
My own favorite is the Dell XPS 13, which comes with Ubuntu preinstalled but you can replace the distro with your favorite as the drivers are open and custom kernel is public at Launchpad.net. Details at http://seravo.fi/2013/dell-xps-13-ubuntu-edition-first-impressions
Looks like the discussion continued in the blogs, without a follow-up here. So make sure to read Hugo's http://hroy.eu/posts/dell_xps13_first_impressions/ and Paul's https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=490 articles about the laptop. Beside Otto also had to update the page about the laptop:
We found out that the in the new laptop shipped to us this fall the Intel wifi card has been replaced with an Atheros wifi card, which unfortunately does not have a proper Linux driver, thus the connection issues. It seems Dell has been aware of Atheros wifi card problems since July as a thread in the Dell support forum shows, but still they ship the “downgraded” crappy model. With some tweaking, you may or may not get the Atheros wifi model working.
As the whole point of buying a pre-installed Linux laptop is to get hardware that is guaranteed to work with Linux, we can no longer recommend this laptop. It is a shame. Our earlier Dell XPS 13 still works perfectly as it has the Intel wifi card.
The other problem in this offer is Ubuntu itself. First because of spying on the users by default (see Richard Stallman's "Ubuntu Spyware: What to do?" https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do or EFF's "Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks. Second, as I assume you would also be interested to buy a machine with GNU/Linux preinstalled instead of Microsoft Windows, although you will afterwards choose another distribution, it helps to prefer offers with distributions which do not include non-free software like Ubuntu does. If the hardware works one of those distributios, it will also work with another GNU/Linux distribution, which does not include non-free software.
I am still a bit unsure what the better way is for the future (in the past I already did both): buy a computer without an operating system and install GNU/Linux distribution of my own choice. This way I do not spent money on non-free Software (although some money might still go to Microsoft, because the vendor has to pay them independant of how the machine was sold to me). Other way I buy a laptop with GNU/Linux preinstalled which includes non-free software. This way I pay money for non-free software -- which I very much dislike -- but on the other hand I show my demand for laptops with GNU/Linux preinstalled which makes it easier for friends and family to buy hardware without my help which includes much more Free Software and less non-free software, than if they would if they buy a Microsoft Windows or Apple machine.
Best Regards, Matthias
2013/11/18 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org:
The other problem in this offer is Ubuntu itself. First because of spying on the users by default (see Richard Stallman's "Ubuntu Spyware: What to do?" https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do or EFF's "Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks.
The Dell machine comes pre-installed with Ubuntu 12.04, which does not have this Amazon lookup feature, and anyways I run Gnome 3 so pretty much everybody I know who used to be Ubuntu fans have switched from the Unity crap to something else: Gnome 3, KDE, Xfce, LXDE etc.. but that is a different story.
Second, as I assume you would also be interested to buy a machine with GNU/Linux preinstalled instead of Microsoft Windows, although you will afterwards choose another distribution, it helps to prefer offers with distributions which do not include non-free software like Ubuntu does. If the hardware works one of those distributios, it will also work with another GNU/Linux distribution, which does not include non-free software.
I haven't tried if I can run Trisquel on this, which would be the most purest form of freedom, but also I don't think I fully understand the issue either and I am not aware of which parts of standard Debian or Ubuntu are actually non-free software like fsfe.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel claims.
Besides the normal Ubuntu repos, the Dell XPS 13 seems to have the following extra repos for drivers
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner deb http://opensource.dell.com/releases/sputnik/archive precise main deb-src http://opensource.dell.com/releases/sputnik/archive precise main deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ precise-dell public deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ precise-dell public deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-hwe-team/sputnik-kernel/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-hwe-team/sputnik-kernel/ubuntu precise main
These all have at least deb-src-lines also and nowhere does my system say any restricted (non-free) drivers are in use, like it would say on Ubuntu computers where Ubuntu detects hardware that needs non-free drivers. But I don't have time to investigate this to the roots, but feel free to look at the repos above and tell me if you find non-free stuff.
Anyway I think Dell XPS 13 is great. It might not be perfect, but it is still the best thing I've seen so far. It enables me to get a real GNU/Linux system without unbearable cost or functional sacrifices. In fact, it has functional advantages that makes it in the top range of laptops available at the moment. Very cool.
Browsing through sites like http://linuxpreloaded.com/ or the FSF directory I can find only one single laptop that is sold pre-installed with Trisquel: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/emperor-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook. I am a customer of ThinkPenguin for other hardware and at least the Fellow Tobias Platen has bought a laptop from there. They have at least Spanish and Swedish(=Finnish) keyboards and ship internationally. If their laptop is OK to you then that would be the most freedom loving choice.
Unfrotunately the current thinkpenguin.com model isn't an ultrabook. In general, the Finnish keyboard requirement alone narrows down the options alot (I can't stop using åäö, right?). I guess lot's of you need Danish, German etc keyboards and Dell XPS 13 is a model that is available in many countries with native keyboards. For me as a Finn I can at the moment choose between Mac laptops, Windows laptops, a few Ubuntu laptops and some Chrome laptops. Of these, I chose Ubuntu.
98 out of 100 Linux geeks I know - and also according to the two polls I made at FOSDEM 2013 - don't by any kind of pre-installed Linux machines, but they buy Windows laptops and Mac laptops and then convert them into Linux machines, without supporting the pre-installed Linux-industry in any way. This is the real problem we should seek to change.
I am proud I've done something about this, advertised it, and helped things go in the better direction. We don't live in a perfect world yet, but we will eventually get there if we vote with our money and persuade our fellow geeks and perhaps even others to vote with their money.
Of those reading this thread - how many of you are currently running a machine that did not come with any kind of Linux pre-installed?
Hi Otto, hi all,
Am 2013-11-19 07:57, schrieb Otto Kekäläinen:
2013/11/18 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org:
Second, as I assume you would also be interested to buy a machine with GNU/Linux preinstalled instead of Microsoft Windows, although you will afterwards choose another distribution, it helps to prefer offers with distributions which do not include non-free software like Ubuntu does. If the hardware works one of those distributios, it will also work with another GNU/Linux distribution, which does not include non-free software.
I haven't tried if I can run Trisquel on this, which would be the most purest form of freedom, but also I don't think I fully understand the issue either and I am not aware of which parts of standard Debian or Ubuntu are actually non-free software like fsfe.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel claims.
Yeah it's not so easy and saying "Trisquel" sounds a lot like "Jehovah" to me[0]. ;) We run machines with CPUs featuring complex proprietary programs and non-free BIOSes.
Anyway I think Dell XPS 13 is great. It might not be perfect, but it is still the best thing I've seen so far. It enables me to get a real GNU/Linux system without unbearable cost or functional sacrifices. In fact, it has functional advantages that makes it in the top range of laptops available at the moment. Very cool.
If the Dell comes with a bad WIFI, that should be one of the most easy parts to change, right?
98 out of 100 Linux geeks I know - and also according to the two polls I made at FOSDEM 2013 - don't by any kind of pre-installed Linux machines, but they buy Windows laptops and Mac laptops and then convert them into Linux machines, without supporting the pre-installed Linux-industry in any way. This is the real problem we should seek to change.
Yes, the preloaded "certified for Windows", "xyz recommends Microsoft" is what we should attack.
Of those reading this thread - how many of you are currently running a machine that did not come with any kind of Linux pre-installed?
No machine of mine came preinstalled with GNU/Linux (Android doesn't count, right?).
There exist only very few laptops compatible with Coreboot: http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards#Laptops The only modern ones are the two chromebooks.
Best wishes Michael
[0] Clarification: It's meant as an expression of hypocrisy.
2013/11/19 Michael Kesper mkesper@fsfe.org:
Anyway I think Dell XPS 13 is great. It might not be perfect, but it is still the best thing I've seen so far. It enables me to get a real GNU/Linux system without unbearable cost or functional sacrifices. In fact, it has functional advantages that makes it in the top range of laptops available at the moment. Very cool.
If the Dell comes with a bad WIFI, that should be one of the most easy parts to change, right?
Just as a clarification: the one I bought in the spring is great, with Intel wifi. The second one my collegue got this autum came with atheros wifi, does not work. Don't buy unless Dell promises to deliver a model with Intel wifi (as it still says in the tech specs at dell.com).
Of those reading this thread - how many of you are currently running a machine that did not come with any kind of Linux pre-installed?
Acer aspire one zg5 ssd with linpus preinstalled. 6 years ago. Ran different flavours and now running trisquel mini (lxde) though I would like gnome3 again. I recently bought a £30 battery and life went from 15min to >6hrs.
My sister in law had one with hdd with xp, it failed, so I installed ubuntu. Worked fine until a SMART diagnosed eminent failure. Gave me the laptop I swapped keyboard (I wanted spanish) and a friend repaired the hdd with I don't what tool (problably nonfree). It is now used in our workshps with trisquel mini for arduino projects.
Acer aspiresone zg5 are available on ebay for £1. Only thing that does not work is battery. Only thing nonfree is bios according to h-node.
¿does anybody know of an holistic tool that repairs broken blocks? Free software?
Më 11/19/2013 08:57 AM, Otto Kekäläinen shkrojti:
2013/11/18 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org:
The other problem in this offer is Ubuntu itself. First because of spying on the users by default (see Richard Stallman's "Ubuntu Spyware: What to do?" https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do or EFF's "Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks.
The Dell machine comes pre-installed with Ubuntu 12.04, which does not have this Amazon lookup feature, and anyways I run Gnome 3 so pretty much everybody I know who used to be Ubuntu fans have switched from the Unity crap to something else: Gnome 3, KDE, Xfce, LXDE etc.. but that is a different story.
Second, as I assume you would also be interested to buy a machine with GNU/Linux preinstalled instead of Microsoft Windows, although you will afterwards choose another distribution, it helps to prefer offers with distributions which do not include non-free software like Ubuntu does. If the hardware works one of those distributios, it will also work with another GNU/Linux distribution, which does not include non-free software.
I haven't tried if I can run Trisquel on this, which would be the most purest form of freedom, but also I don't think I fully understand the issue either and I am not aware of which parts of standard Debian or Ubuntu are actually non-free software like fsfe.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel claims.
Besides the normal Ubuntu repos, the Dell XPS 13 seems to have the following extra repos for drivers
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner deb http://opensource.dell.com/releases/sputnik/archive precise main deb-src http://opensource.dell.com/releases/sputnik/archive precise main deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ precise-dell public deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ precise-dell public deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-hwe-team/sputnik-kernel/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-hwe-team/sputnik-kernel/ubuntu precise main
These all have at least deb-src-lines also and nowhere does my system say any restricted (non-free) drivers are in use, like it would say on Ubuntu computers where Ubuntu detects hardware that needs non-free drivers. But I don't have time to investigate this to the roots, but feel free to look at the repos above and tell me if you find non-free stuff.
Anyway I think Dell XPS 13 is great. It might not be perfect, but it is still the best thing I've seen so far. It enables me to get a real GNU/Linux system without unbearable cost or functional sacrifices. In fact, it has functional advantages that makes it in the top range of laptops available at the moment. Very cool.
Browsing through sites like http://linuxpreloaded.com/ or the FSF directory I can find only one single laptop that is sold pre-installed with Trisquel: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/emperor-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook. I am a customer of ThinkPenguin for other hardware and at least the Fellow Tobias Platen has bought a laptop from there. They have at least Spanish and Swedish(=Finnish) keyboards and ship internationally. If their laptop is OK to you then that would be the most freedom loving choice.
Unfrotunately the current thinkpenguin.com model isn't an ultrabook. In general, the Finnish keyboard requirement alone narrows down the options alot (I can't stop using åäö, right?). I guess lot's of you need Danish, German etc keyboards and Dell XPS 13 is a model that is available in many countries with native keyboards. For me as a Finn I can at the moment choose between Mac laptops, Windows laptops, a few Ubuntu laptops and some Chrome laptops. Of these, I chose Ubuntu.
98 out of 100 Linux geeks I know - and also according to the two polls I made at FOSDEM 2013 - don't by any kind of pre-installed Linux machines, but they buy Windows laptops and Mac laptops and then convert them into Linux machines, without supporting the pre-installed Linux-industry in any way. This is the real problem we should seek to change.
I am proud I've done something about this, advertised it, and helped things go in the better direction. We don't live in a perfect world yet, but we will eventually get there if we vote with our money and persuade our fellow geeks and perhaps even others to vote with their money.
Of those reading this thread - how many of you are currently running a machine that did not come with any kind of Linux pre-installed?
For the records, my 2006 HP laptop didn't have any GNU/Linux pre-installed. My main box has always been a custom built. Both run GNU/Linux.
cheers Besnik