New Distro Forum

This forum is for the discussion of Conectiva Linux. For more information visit http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=31126.

--jeremy

WHOA! I thought I hit a glitch, WHOA! Cool, the birth...

Sweet

Looks I need to try Connectiva.

But why Connectiva?.....

How much do you know about Conectiva?
How many forums about Conectiva have you seen recently?

guess those are good reasons why

plus, Conectiva has a good share of user

Caleb why is Conectiva so popular in Latin America?

I work at Conectiva so I'm obviously biased, but here are some reasons I like Conectiva:

- works well with all the hardware that's common in this region, including older smaller machines
- very easily upgradable with apt-get, package dependencies are worked out automagically
- the snapshot distribution (a bit like RH's rawhide) has new RPMs uploaded on a daily basis so you always have access to the latest stuff
- many snapshot users are on a mailing list together with the developers and help determine where the distro is going

I don't care much about the following points myself, but people have told me these are reasons _they_ like Conectiva:
- easy installation
- good localisation to spanish and portuguese

Actually is not THAT popular around here (Argentina) mainly beacuse they are not selling their boxed product, support is hard to get (no phone, no office, no forum) and things like that.
Most popular distro over here?

I'd say Slackware with Devian coming in in a second close (really close).

But the fact is that Brasil is the largest country in latin america, with more population than any other country over here and that in Brasil they DO sell a boxed product (with manuals and such), plus is a cheap OS in comparision with M$oft, it's way better than M$oft and support is easy to get.

A few years ago (3 o 4) Conectiva was selling their Boxed product over here, at a reasonable price and with manuals and enough documentation in SPANISH (which is a fundamental point to have in consideration when thinking why a distro is more popular than the other) like to get people interested on linux. And they did and that's why some of us still use Conectiva and not other distros.

Two points that should be mentioned are: pricing and availability.
Conectiva used to have those back then, but right now, a boxed version of conectiva is impossible to get around here (believe me, i've been looking everywhere)

Now: if Mandrake, Suse, Red Hat and others are also available in spanish, why going with Conectiva?

Maybe because it's latin or maybe because even though MDK, SUSE, or RH have low prices, those prices are still way to high because those prices are expresed in dollars and you have to add import taxes, shipping, etc...

The truth remains: non of them have support lines over here, most of them are really hard to get as boxed products with all the manuals, paying more than $40 (that would 140 argentinean pesos) for an OS just doesn't make any sense since we all know prices can be lowered just by producing those products over here (lowering production cost)

Have in consideration that around here SuSe's personal version costs $ 100 american ( $ 365 argentinean pesos) and that a normal wage around here is about $ 400 argentinean pesos a month... Now just do the math...

There are a lot of other issues but I think those would give you a picture why

if there's anything else you'd like to know about this topic or about how things work around here, just feel free to do it, i'll try to give a the best answer that I can find.

Bye

If you think there's a market, you should sell Conectiva in Argentina

Conectiva used to have an office in Buenos Aires and people did start using Linux, but when the economic crisis started NOBODY wanted to actually pay for support, so it's obvious what had to happen with that office ... Sad but true

yep that's true...

That's what i meant when i said "A few years ago (3 o 4) Conectiva was selling their Boxed product over here...".
People started to use Conectiva around here..
Right now everything is a mees but in the other hand, having lost the 1 to1 exchange rate with the american dollar, microsoft products are extremely high priced so there's a sure market for linux, add that to the fact that kde and gnome have grown enough like to be handled by any workstation user and there's your market

I would sell Conectiva over here if i had the chance, I think that there is a market for sure and with no other Distros beign manufactured over here (meaning: no competence) and taking into account that their prices can not compete with those of products manufactured over here or over Brasil, there is a market for sure.

Thing is that that kind of activity involves money that i don't have :P

yup!

some one else just said the same thing i said !!!!!!

Linux spreading rapidly in Latin America:

News and Information Nameless Foo writes ""Linux, like the Internet, exists beyond the United States, Western Europe, and industrialized parts of Asia. The Linux OS has taken hold wherever computer users desire freedom, and wherever there is demand for inexpensive software. Latin America fits that description perfectly; current projections from IDG indicate that by 2003, 33 percent of computers in the region will be running Linux."

That i found on http://www.pclinuxonline.com/ (same place where i first heard of the existences of this (best ever i've been into) forum).

the full story can be found here : http://www.pclinuxonline.com/


Things over here (argentina) are growing up at really fast peace and the most important thing to notice (in mi humble opinion) is the fact that they are growing without any kind of support since no body is producing any linux distro at a low price (as i said before, over here people can only get expensive imported versions or burnt cd=roms with no support whatsoever or manuals or people to ask for help except older linux users).

That means that the pace at wich linux communties are growing up here is manly due to the work pf uor LUGs and the help that Linux users can provide to each other.

Another thing to have in consideration is that after ten years of having a one to one exchange rate to the american dollar, most of us have pc in our homes (at least those can be labeled as midlle class) and a connection to the internet.

That gave users the chance to have acces to all of the info needed to get linux to work, to help other user, to setup forums, to create portals for linux users, to get connected to each other and to discuss ideas on how to let other people know that Linux is for everybody.

oh man, i could go on for hours explaining why i'm so excited about things to come regarding the spreading of linux in latin america !

so i better cut it here