[gNewSense-users] My First experience with a completely Free Operating System

[Anoop Jacob Thomas]

Hello Friends,

I had a home installation this weekend(for one of my friends), i have
to describe her as a newbie/an expert in online chat and browsing and
nothing else.

 I downloaded my copy of gNewSense on 4th May morning, and made a cd.
Tried on my desktop, and on my laptop in VirtualBox on top of Ubuntu.
I had given only 256MB RAM and the live cd booted and worked very fast
(great, Ubuntu Live CD's dont work on 256MB RAM).

 Then by afternoon i paid my friend a visit, i found that the system
had only 256MB RAM(and that too shared with video, so usable 224~) so
i decided to try out gNewSense. It did not disappoint me, it loaded
and i could access all the applications from the live cd, with
 gnome2.22, metacity and all on a 256MB system(she had a plan to
upgrade the RAM, and gNewSense allowed her to save money, but lost a
business for the dealer :D)

 So now it was to decide which distro to install, well gNewSense, no
doubt about it. And it was few hours of configuration(5.5hrs
precisely), setting up webcam(Creative VF0330), kopete, ekiga,
KMplayer, Swanalekha(for malayalam). Then about 1 hour of class how
 GNU/Linux works and she was fine with it. She wants to chat to her
sister(VoIP and Video), so i recommened ekiga and created an account
for her and taught her, how her sister could use ekiga from windows.
And kopete for Video over Yahoo.

 Windows was very slow and also it showed 'Your windows is not genuine
or you may be a victim of........', it made my task easier, she had
Photoshop on windows(learning to draw), so i showed her GIMP and she
was interested.

 Atlast, "anoop do i have to upgrade the RAM",
 "no need, do you feel the system is slow"
 "no"
 "i saved your 1000bucks, give me a treat"

 Lastly few words about Free Software, GNU and FSF.

 And I am really happy I gave a 100% Free Operating System to my
 friend.

 On older systems i recommend trying gNewSense Deltah 2.0, it's cool.

 Setting up Creative VF0330 on gNewSense or Ubuntu or Debian
 http://www.rastageeks.org/ov51x-jpeg/index.php/Ov51xJpegHackedInstall

I am Anoop Jacob Thomas from, Trivandrum, India, pursuing my final
year engineering in Computer Science and Engineering.

-- 
Anoop Jacob Thomas
www.ilug-tvm.org