Hi all,
I was asked to talk to a group of engineering students about Linux and open source software in general. All of them use Microsoft Windows XP or Vista. Whats worse, all of them use pirated versions of Windows. We finally sat down for an informal talk and these are some of the questions which I was asked:

1. Does Linux have all the basic facilities that you get in Windows such as music players, movie players, CD burners etc?
2. In Vista, when I run two major applications like a CD burner while playing a movie, the system hangs (this is with Intel HT and 1 GB of RAM). Does this happen in Linux?
3. Will Linux survive as it is held up by just a group of volunteers?

I spent a long time answering questions of different kinds. At the end a dozen or so said they would give it a try. But I would like to know if there is a group that is promoting linux? Is there any website which contains an exhaustive FAQ about the benifits of using Linux? I have seen several people asking questions on LQ and a number replies but I would like to know if there is/are any good website(s) dedicated to promoting Linux. I found this one:

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Advocacy.html

Any other good ones?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Redhat, IBM, SUN and many other "big boys" are "volunteers" as well

Promoting any OS is tricky.
Most people don't really care and will be annoyed if you do so...

Promoting its philosophy/business-model(Free/Open Source Software) is IMO more important.

You don't show your location, but it is likely that there is a LUG in your local area (have a look through our LUG forum to see if anything there is shown and, if not, google for "<your area> LUG" and something should show up). You could also show them the ease of install that we enjoy under Linux, show them our movie players, music players, multiple DVD/CD burning apps.

As said, Linux is now used and developed by large companies as well as by thousands and thousands of volunteers, it's not going to go away.

Actually, I know the answers since I do that in Linux. I just wanted to give an idea of the kind of questions I was asked. I wanted to know if there is any website that lists out all the features of Linux that makes you want to use it.

I live in Mumbai, India. There is a Mumbai LUG which has a few dozen members and meets 2-3 times a year.

My idea is to show the advantages of Linux to students who have just enrolled in engineering institutes.

Will the Os guys be annoyed at me or will the target audience be annoyed at me for disturbing their peace and quiet?

Probably both.
Their's nothing impressive about "it can do what you already can" without some extras.

IMO it's mostly the FOSS model that blows all ancient commercial products away.

From India? Didn't your government just switch the educational system to Linux? I think I read that someplace.

Google around a little bit; usally you'll find several lists and press releases and case studies about Linux in any kinds of environments from company to administration or military.

Years ago I did similar something for Germany, exactly for lobbying reasons and you'll be surprised what you find.

Check the biggest newspaper's websites of your country, for example.

When I was installing a few Linux in my PC I noticed my installed systems came from these countries

No
of
disros Country
2 Argentina
1 Asia
4 Australia
1 Austria
1 Belgium
4 Brazil
1 Bulgaria
5 Canada
3 China
2 Czech
2 Europe
7 France
14 Germany
3 Global
1 Hungary
1 India
2 Iran
1 Ireland
5 Isle of Man
3 Israel
5 Italy
5 Japan
1 Nepal
2 Netherland
1 New Zealand
4 Norway
1 Philippines
2 Poland
2 Portugal
2 Puerto Rico
1 S Korea
1 Sweden
2 Switzerland
1 Syria
1 Taiwan
1 Thailand
1 Turkey
5 UK
44 USA
145 Total

39 countries are contributing the Linux operating systems.

I could only find one distro from India. So the OP has to work harder.

Newcomers to Linux should have no illusion that Linux cannot die because it is a free operating system by the people and for the people. Many countries are teaching children to use Linux in school now. Linux is already an international language. There are more people working on Linux than any the proprietary system. Just take a look at the recent advancement in Linux.

About three years ago I entered Linux when Fedora Core 2 was released. In that time M$ managed to bring out Vista but we have Fedora 8 now and it is just one of many familes in Linux.

Be careful. Some distros (such as Fedora) do not play proprietary music files (MP3s) right out of the box. You can, however, enable these file types after doing a little bit of research and installing a few extra packages. It's nothing tricky, but it can be a pain if you're one of those kinds of people who like to pull a computer out of the box and just expect it to work the way you want.

Other distros, such as Slackware, do play proprietary file types without any extra packages. It's up to you and your preferences as to which distro to pick.


3rdkey

Totally offtopic, but that has actually nothing to do with being proprietary. Their exist many Free Software MP3 encoders (it's a legal issue).

From what I get so far:

1. Redhat, Suse etc promote their own OSs by whatever means but there is no Linux community effort to spread Linux to various areas.
2. Its upto the users and other inspired volunteers to spread the word. In any case those who use pirated softwares are probably too happy using it to bother switching over to Linux simply you can do the same. Finally it comes to interest as far as Linux use is concerned.
3. I found this on the India govt trying to promote Linux:

http://hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/.../msg00878.html

Problem is that in India, piracy is pretty rampant and desktop users brazenly use pirated versions of Windows and all other softwares that are either cracked versions or simply installed using the same key. This is prevalent even in institutes (discouraged by institute authorities of course). Under such circumstances, talking about a free OS probably won't make any sense to a group of people who don't pay in the first place for what they have on their computers.

So in a nutshell: If you use Linux and like it, do so and be happy.

If those are engineering students, wouldn't they be interested in making their own OS? I don''t know how they would pull that off with an MS system, legal or not. And maybe you could steer your copy of Linux into one of the many MS virus zones, just to show the difference with windows?