Hello everyone,

Let me give you some introduction, I'm an IRAQi student, medicine student in particular. My real hobby is computing. My neighbors, relatives, colleagues, and friends consider me a professional computer expert (guru!).
I USED TO consider myself as an advanced computer expert & programmer, well.. until I found LINUX!
I did not know anything about this system, since it is totally absent here!
In IRAQ, almost no one knows Linux, in my whole college I found only 2 students who have heard the term Linux, one of them thinks of it as a "HACKING/CRACKING TOOL" !!!!!!
I got into the world of Linux a few months ago, I found that it is totally unfair for Linux to be so unknown here in IRAQ. One of the major causes is the Software Piracy here, we don't have copyright laws here and EVERYTHING 'truly everything' is being pirated...
I feel that I must take some act in spreading the word of Linux here in IRAQ. I believed that this can really get something changed.
I've started to tell people about Linux, and I've installed it for 2 colleagues, and a third one has got it for himself and got it running.
My REAL problem is divided into several parts:

- Social problem: it is about how people look at me when I tell them about Linux, they make fun of me & consider what I say as non-sense. They tell me: "Why should we use an unknown, never-used-before, free, not-familiar system WHILE we can get the best (!) system [they mean WIN-doze] which is familiar, popular, paid-for an for FREE!"
How can I let the people here understand the reality behind Linux after tens of years of using the WIN-Doze system??

- Technical problem: the internet in IRAQ is generally slow, in fact deadly slow, with an average of 15KB/s MAXIMUM download speed. So, it seems a difficult thing to download Linux ISOs from the net, and there is NO other sources for Linux! I spend days downloading a single Distro CD using a download manager (downloading DVDs is totally impossible!).

- Personal problem: its about my personality, I'm sort of obsessive, and I feel that I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING while I already have to do many things, not to mention that I've been elected as the Students Representative in college...
I feel overwhelmed quickly, I feel that I did not really know enough, in fact I feel I have to learn EVERYTHING about Linux QUICKLY in order to restore my position as a computer expert, in the same time, I have to study Medicine hard in order to complete my college carrier.

So, people. Are things too messed up for my life or it is just me complaining while everything is perfect????

Hello from NZ
The trick is to emphasise the liberty part of the freedom ...

Free Softwore (gnu/linux, gnu/bsd etc) offers Iraq the chance to have an independant computer industry.

This is a well discussed problem - imagine what it was like for Richard Stallman trying to convince his USA collegues at a time when linux did not exist, nor did any of the software which went to make it.

Have a look at:
http://www.gnu.org
... particularly their philosophy section.

Also -
http://windows7sins.org/

The following was very helpful for me:
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/linuxmanship/

However, your problem is basically trying to convince someone who has always lived in captivity that freedom is a good thing. It is a hard sell, so be patient.

Also keep an eye on the International Software Freedom Day webpage:
http://softwarefreedomday.org/

You have one big advantage right now - Microsoft is not actually marketing at you. In NZ, each time I hold a software freedom event, Microsoft is there the day before giving out free software. We also have Microsoft marketing direct to schools and government.

The major gnu/linux companies (redhat, novell, canonical) will post a CD or DVD to you. Getting one posted to Iraq will be interesting...

The SFD organisers regularly ship lots of CDs to teams around the World.

Once you have a CD, downloaded or otherwise, you get to copy it lots of times.

Probably your approach will be to form a users group, where everyone chips in some effort.

There are also technical ways around the speed issues if you have the budget

The main thing here is to chill out.
You already know far more about computers in the first few weeks of gnu/linux than you learned in years under windows. It will happen.

Your main studies have to come first, you know this.

Here's how I handle it:

I teach a short nightschool course in computer basics, using gnu/linux - 4x a year.
I run a LUG, which meets irregularly. I hold an installfest 4x a year, and organise the annual SFD events where I live. In ten years, we have gone from almost unknown to having an impact on lawmaking.

But seriously, you are not alone there.

... gnu/linux has a presence in Iraq, to the extent that it has come to the attention of the western press.
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/BrainDump...unded-Country/ (2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3830545.stm (2004)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7320 (2003)


... so there used to be a lug, but I have not found any recent activity.

Um... I think you're answering your own question here... ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

... ok, all joking aside, you are facing some real challenges here, although none that can't be handled with a certain amount of patience.

Don't worry about trying to learn Linux quickly, better to get the basics down well. If you're using Linux and everyone else around you is using Windows, you're way ahead of the curve, and they don't even know it.

I would highly suggest learning command line tools; I believe that they are really at the core of what Linux is all about, plus it will be a lot easier to use command line tools over the network connections that you're talking about.

You may have better luck getting software via mail from Europe. I bet that Canonical would be willing to mail ISOs to you, probably for the cost of postage.

In terms of the Social problem: this is world wide. I live in a decent sized city in the U.S., but there are small towns 80 km South of me where nobody knows what Linux is.

I would invest in a USB memory stick, 8GB or larger, if you can get a hold of one. This will allow you to take Linux to places where you don't have your computer. Most computers made in the last three or four years can boot from one of these, and unlike booting from a live distro on a CD, you can store files on the USB stick.

This will allow you to show people what Linux is, perhaps even on their own computer.

Well said, Simon.

Hello Drycola

Regards downloading issues, have you tried torrenting?

BTW, where did you learn your written English? It's very good.

Best

Charles

Over slow dialup and the possibility of adding uploads to your time?His English is pretty awesome ain't it? It's excellent anywhere.

It would be nice if native English speakers were as articulate on this board. (Of course, I'm making assumptions here, as far as we know he's British royal family on holiday )

But, I've come to expect high standard English from educated Iraqis, and this is a med student.

Agreed these could be issues but the time is computer time rather than personal time and the time to download (for popular Linux files with plenty of seeders -- so fast download and little upload bandwidth) would be around the same as other methods plus there would be automatic file error checking and automatically resumed transfer.

I think Linux is possibly the common interest we share at a grass root level. I have installed Linux from Turkey, Iran, Syria, Nepal etc.

Given a bit of time there may be a distro from Iraq too.

Hello!

A few things that might make Linux relevant to you and the people you tell about it are the freedom to perhaps in the future release a distro tailored to your needs! (A freedom touched on already.) Also, things like: Security. I can't imagine the copies of Windows that get passed around are awfully secure! Even by 'normal' windows standards... additionally, Linux will run happily on lower spec hardware. I would guess that in common with many people, there are folks you know who would rather re-use older hardware than buy the latest & greatest...

Thanks to ALL of you for your helpful & encouraging replies...

Torrenting seems almost impossible with my internet connection, my upload speed is much lower than download.

Thank you very much, I did not exert any dedicated efforts for learning English, but I could acquire it as an effect of my continuous interest in Computers & Programming.


Thanks for your nice words, but I didn't exactly understand what you meant by the following:
----
Hello, Saikee
I hope we will make one! In fact, I've already thought about this idea, about making an IRAQi distro that will fit the general requirements of IRAQi computer users.
I have planned to start this project totally by myself hoping that others will join me later. I've decided to base my system on LFS, since it seems the most effective way for making new distro (if there is a better one then please advise me ).
I have also chose a name for it . I think I'll call it DIJLA, the name of a major river in IRAQ.
I hope I did not get far off-topic, and I would like to thank you ALL again for your encouragement..

...

In theory it should not (TM) matter but if you've tried it and it doesn't work ...

I was referring to the effect that, online, nobody needs to be as they appear.

As far as we know, your English is due to being born speaking it - the assumption that everyone in Iraq will write with an "accent" is actually a kind of prejudice we need to be a bit careful of online. Similarly, not everyone in Iraq wears a turban.

There is - since Iraqui computer requirements will be very similar to everyone elses, with maybe a different mix of default software and language requirements, the usual option is to start out with an existing distro and modify that.

Then you need only maintain the bits that are different.

Distros like Debian and Ubuntu are popular for this. fedora also has the built-in ability to make "spins". How far you go depends on how different the requirements are.

Like it: thats more creative than most distro names.

The major core distros, which other distros get based on, would be redhat, debian and slackware. Once you have a good idea of what Iraquis need to know, have a look at how different versions of these get done.

Ubuntu is also often used as a base - like Mint and GNewSence - so it's also worth a look.

For the future, you may want to look at mesh networks. This is a useful way to get a fast network in places that have low-speed ISPs, by bypassing them completely. With a repo mirror server on a mesh network, anybody else on the mesh gets faster access to the isos and packages - only one location suffers the long download.

Infrastructuer is lower than you'd think -
http://communication.howstuffworks.c...works-work.htm

Hello Drycola,

I'm impressed with the efforts you are making to get to know Linux on one hand and to see if you can get an Iraqi Linux 'movement' up and running, and therefore I have a proposal. I have access to a pretty speedy internet connection and have a lot of iso's on an external harddisk.

I'm willing to download and burn any distro(s) you might be interested in (maybe even already have it on cd) and mail it to you. I live in Spain and they don't charge very much. You don't have to worry about costs, I'm paying the costs for sending the package up to 1 kg (that are a lot of cd). Consider it my 'investment' in the Linux movement in Iraq.

If your interested in my proposal then just mail we which distro(s) you need/want, your direction and I'll do the necessary. I'm leaving for vacation to Peru next week Saturday so the sooner you mail me the sooner I get everything downloaded, burned and mailed to you before the end of next week.

Kind regards,

Eric