On 19-Feb-07 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
In my opinion choosing to ignore what is IMO one of the better choices for a beginner distribution based on one bug specific to the liveCD version is not doing your friend any favours.
But anyway that's already been said by others. What I really wanted to add is that I don't think liveCD's are the best way to expose potential newcomers to Linux. LiveCD's have their place, they are great for resurrecting a shafted system (this is about all I use them for) and for confirming basic hardware compatibility before committing to a full installation.
However when you use them to enable people to experience linux for the first time you have a problem. You can tell them until you are blue in the face that it will be slower because it is running from the CD ROM, but I guarantee that they will walk away thinking that it's linux that is slow.
Well, neither of us has spare kit to do a real installation on at the moment, so it's the best way to give the guy a way of trying it out. (I can always show Linux running on my laptop, but that would only be a demo). And, for distance reasons, neither of is likely to spend much time at the other's place.
Regarding your comment that "they will walk away thinking that it's linux that is slow", I don't think so in this case. He's quite capable of understanding the point, and in any case when an app is actually running (once downloaded from the CD) it's pretty snappy.
Take it from someone who spends a lot of time demonstrating systems to potential users. If your demonstration is plagued by something as obvious as speed issues it doesn't matter how you explain that when they commit to an installation it will be faster, they will never get over the fact that it is slow at the moment.
Well, as I say, I don't think that applies in this case, though I can well imagine scenarios where it would!
Anyway, trhere are other distributions with live CDs, so I'll have a look at those, perhaps.
Thanks for the coments, though. Ted.
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