Cody Taylor

this is the update to the earlier post about the girl that was so close to becoming a rocket scientist that she had to drop out of school because her laptop had Ubuntu on it. Now the problem is now all us Linux users out here that are just haters, make your own call on this.

I say that is that Ubuntu and Linux/FLOSS in general needs advocates on behalf of students, educators, and the next wave of technolgy users. People generally tend to stick with the OS they first learn so one of the best ways to make Linux maintstream is to get it into schools.

jammag points out a look at statistics from the Popularity Contest projects on Debian and Ubuntu. These projects track the download and upgrade habits of their respective distributions’ users, revealing — no surprise here — that Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do. Likewise, Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options. The article concludes with a look at the limits of what conclusions can be drawn from statistics like these. “In general, Debian users seem more eclectic in their use of software than Ubuntu users, and less likely to use an application simply because it is included by default. Debian users also seem more likely to be concerned to maintain a free installation than Ubuntu users — a conclusion that is hardly surprising when you consider Debian’s reputation for freedom, but is still interesting to see being supported by statistics. … To what extent last week’s figures are typical is uncertain. Very likely, studying the figures over a longer period would produce different results. Possibly, too, those who participate in the Popularity Contests are not typical users of either Ubuntu or Debian. “

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader points out this report at News.com.au which says that “THE first Australian ‘Google phone’ set to go on sale within weeks has been delayed indefinitely, with the manufacturer Kogan forced to refund early buyers. In a statement released this afternoon, the company said the delay was ‘due to future interoperability issues.’The Agora reached a very late stage of development, manufacturing had commenced and we were within days of shipping the product to customers,” company founder Ruslan Kogan said in a statement.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Draw the line in the sand! It’s the showdown the tech world has feared: Microsoft’s upstart Windows 7 versus Linux. We’ve seen plenty of volleys back and forth from both camps over the past few days, thanks to the beta launch of the Windows 7 operating system. The new OS has a lot going for it–features that directly target the growing Linux…

Surely, I am an advocate of Dell (and system76.com, and now HP for mobile mi(it’s Ubuntu)) because of their GUTS to sell GNU/Linux to end users! That being said, I wanted for people to see this story to raise awareness. Regular people are getting pushed around, being discouraged from choice, and soldiers of freedom MUST ANSWER! BRING IT ON!!