Hi > I kind of disagree with that statement. I do not wish to flare your > temper, or start a flame war, but there is a lot that goes into what > you learn, and how you are brought up. I started using Linux only a > couple of years ago, and now I must say I am pretty comfortable. The > problem with most kids these days is that the first computer they see > has Win installed. They get used to it, and settle down, often for > several years. (10+ in my case). Now, when they face an environment > like Gnome, they are thrown off their comfort zone - there is no > "start bar", no "Control Panel", etc.. > > These things often settle into the mind of the use so much that they > tend to become the universal default. My mom was asking me why there > is no "notepad" on my Linux Box. Rather than explain out all the > details, I rebooted in Win.
I guess it is worth the effort explaining. It's just that users need to inculcate an openness to change. IMO, it helps everywhere, because technology is ever changing. After playing around a bit with Windows 3.1, I was suddenly confronted with a desktop running Windows 95! I would've been stupid to say 'Where is the program manager? This is so different! Remove this stuff at once and put back my beloved Windows 3.1'! > The point I am trying to make here is the way kids are brought up. If > you show them a Linux System say with Gnome, and tell them this is > what a computer is - what they have at school are computers too, but > different ones, they learn to get used to the idea of mutiple Desktop > environments. s/kids/first time computer users/ Yes. And it looks like this is the trick that Microsoft is adopting to check the growth of Linux. IMHO, all these 'Social welfare campaigns' supported by Microsoft, by providing free copies of Windows to run on kiosks set up in rural villages are actually monopolizing campaigns to target people who see computers for the first time. 20 years later, when every villager in India will probably have a computer, he'd obviously be inclined to using Windows because that's what he saw first. I think l10n and i18n for FOSS projects should be given attention to, because people in rural India are more comfortable with their mother tongues! > Several schools in Russia are introducing kids to Linux, and teaching > them python as their first programming language around grade 4. I > think it is a great move. Yes, indeed. > It is purely a matter of convenience. It's more a matter of choice. I prefer free software by choice, convenient or not. > Pranesh Srinivasan, > Sophomore, ^^ Time to change that ;-) Regards Akarsh
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