On Friday 23 Mar 2007 15:25:14 Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote: > Basic idea, is to > have a workshop for some number of cyber cafe owners to start off so > that they can completely migrate there Windows boxes to some free > operating system.
Not happening anytime soon. I had manage to convert a cyber cafe to Linux -- Only the server. The gaming cafes can't leave Windows and the client machines, the ones which the customers operate need to be loaded with M$ Office, MSN, Yahoo and some other messengers. Messengers which support webcams and voice chat and all that jazz. Don't tell me Gaim or Kopete can help. They can't. Kopete surely can't. It doesn't support one time logins. Maybe AMSN. No alternative for Yahoo available. Unless of course, all these things work perfectly in Wine. Unrelated, but KDE's kiosk mode can be useful. Secondly, we needed an altogether different print server running Windows because it had a scanner not supported by Linux. The machine also needed to be loaded with CorelDraw. Back then there was no alternative because no Linux app would open CorelDraw files and CorelDraw itself wouldn't run on CrossOver or Wine. MANY customers need CorelDraw printouts. I don't know how the situation stands currently. Quit trying to convert cyber cafes. Get home users to use Linux first and to do that, get students to learn Linux first. Yeah and uhhhh, the philosophy of freedom doesn't matter in this case. This is purely business. So, kindly show the cyber cafe owners why Linux suits their needs better than Windows. Currently, I don't think its possible. If it is, well, good thing. OK. Fine. I'll change that. Just make sure you do your homework, some of which I've talked about above, before you approach anyone about this issue. Two other ways. One is to force them to use Linux by having a rule that says they must. You'll have a lot angry cyber cafe owners. There is one way. Raid all the cyber cafes and make them buy the licenses for all the software that they run. Take strict action against those who don't. That'll be a way to force them to use Linux. That way you can anger customers who don't want to learn OpenOffice just to be able to write a letter. Yeah yeah, the differences are small but highly annoying to someone who doesn't have the time to look around a bit. So, uhhh.. well, your choice. Hopefully you'll come up with better choices than those I've mentioned. Btw, I think I can get that cyber cafe owner friend of mine to talk to you guys. Maybe he'll be able to help you get some cyber cafe people to use Linux. Mind you, all this while, I've ignored the effort needed to learn Linux and to replace the existing Windows installations with Linux. Good luck. -- ---------------------------------------- Mrugesh Karnik GPG Key 0xBA6F1DA8 Public key on http://wwwkeys.pgp.net ----------------------------------------
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