Raiden's Realm: The death of Linux Evangelism, and the rise of Education

The death of Linux Evangelism, and the rise of Education (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: Aug 12, 2009 at 01:13pm
Section: Editorials
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One of the rants I've been seeing in increasing numbers of late is in the form of rants against Linux users who constantly try to "Evangelize" everyone into using Linux and/or Open Source software. Sadly, back in the day when Linux was new, there was plenty of low hanging fruit that such tactics would work on.

Most of these people were already power users, and thus the standard methods of evangelism would work beautifully. Well, all the low hanging fruit that can be picked has long since been picked, and the stuff that remains and refuses to go quietly shouldn't be touched anyways. If they haven't been converted yet, they either likely never will be, or certain events will need to transpire before they do make that leap. Your preaching to them won't do you any good anymore.

So, should we dump all evangelism for Linux and Open Source? Should we immediately stop promoting it? Hardly. We simply need to go about it in a new way. Grab a ruler, pull out your behive hairdo and pick up an apple, because the new way to make converts is.....education.

For those of you who just gagged and had a heart attack, you can stop panicking (or faking, depending on who you are). For those of you who aren't faking, I recommend 911. Anyways, the next level of fruit that we have readily available to us, but which is not within immediate reach for easy picking, is the mid-level fruit. Yes, we'll need to get out the proverbial ladder in order to get to them. But if we won't pick them, others will, and we likely won't approve of who those people are.

The first step in getting this “fruit” is to educate them. Education is necessary for these people, as they aren't the type who will find Linux and Open Source on their own. Those were the low hanging fruits. This group requires that we work a little bit at it to get their attention and make them aware we're here.

So what's the best way to get their attention and break the ice? Well, the same way sales people do it, by appealing to the eyes. If you set them down in front of a Linux machine, or in front of an Open Source application, and demonstrate it, they're more likely be sold on it, or at least give it greater consideration than if you just threw a bunch of facts at them.

People listen evangelism like pitches day in day out, nearly all year long. They come from marketers and advertisers of all shapes and sizes, and many people have grown numb to the sales pitch way of doing things. That's one huge reason that evangelism doesn't work with these kind of people.

You now have to "show" them instead of just "telling" them in order to get them to bite. It's like fish. You can't tell them that they should get on your hook. You have to provide a fat, tasty worm first before they'll even consider looking at your hook.

You have to remember that the people we're now focusing on winning to FOSS and Linux are the majority of computer users. They are the soccer moms, the average joes, the guys and gals who are not computer geeks.

These people aren't uber geeks who can just pick up the manual, read it, and suddenly know everything. It's one of the reasons I work so hard to teach people about Linux and FOSS. It's also why I've starting a Linux training course project to help build a system where anybody can go out and educate others to the wonders and joy of FOSS and Linux.

Most people don't go the traditional route of properly introducing people to FOSS and Linux, and most especially educating them, simply because they DON'T KNOW HOW. I plan to build a training system so simple that anybody can educate people to what Linux and FOSS have to offer. I'd love to see people who have educational backgrounds get onboard, because this would be both a great way for them to contribute to a worthwhile project, and it'll help increase the positive exposure for Linux and FOSS.

And another thing, for those of you who love to beat it into people's heads that your distribution is superior to someone else's. It's not. Yes, it may be in some respects on some hardware, but as one of my forum members once said, "If it doesn't work for you, you're using the wrong distro."

Put simply, not every distro will work for everyone, or on every kind of hardware. I've had people rave about Puppy Linux. I couldn't ever get it to behave for me. (Bad dog! Bad! Bad! *woof!*) Yet there have been others who have found Puppy to be the perfect distro for them. Why? It worked well on the hardware they had, even though it didn't for me, likely because my hardware was too new, since Puppy specializes in older hardware.

Same goes for PCLOS. I like PCLOS. And despite the few stumblings they've had over the past couple of years, I still like them. I *prefer* Mint, but I also like the generic KDE interface of PCLOS. But that doesn't mean my hardware did. Case in point. My desktop loves PCLOS. My laptop despises it. So when choosing a distro for both of them, I took the one that worked well on both machines. That just happened to be Mint.

But that doesn't mean that Mint is right for everyone either. I had a friend of mine who's machine worked best with Xandros. Another with Suse, and another still with PC-BSD. Just because you think your distro is the best (that goes for all you Ubuntu fanboys who worship the cd's on which your distro is burned), DOES NOT mean it's the best for everyone. It's why we have such variety in the FOSS world. It's like going to a clothing store and picking out gloves.

Do you pick out the same size and style of glove as everyone else? I should hope not. What about cloths? We don't all run around in drab gray jumpsuits and beanies, do we? Then why should we all be using the same distro? No one distro is perfect for everyone, much to the chagrin of some people.

New users need to realize that some experimentation may be required when finding a distro, and that they may have to hunt through several until they find the right one. If you're an experienced user coaching them through this discovery process, find a system that works best for them and go with it until they find one that suits them best.

Personally, I think that three things need to occur when settling a new user into a new distro. First off, find the UI that works best. In other words, KDE3, KDE4, Gnome, XFCE, etc. That'll thin down the list of distros in a hurry. Secondly, find out the type of PC they have. IE, old, new, bleeding edge. That'll further thin down the list.

Also, only pick distros with LiveCD's included with the install disk. That way you can quickly find out which distros will play well with their hardware, and which won't, instead of having to discover this the hard way while installing the OS. It'll save you a lot of hours of frustrating work, and will help keep them from growing frustrated too quickly and giving up too soon.

Lastly, take what remains and start with the most common denominator. Say they pick KDE4 for example. Start with Pardus, Mint KDE or Kubuntu and work out from there. If they like KDE3 instead, go with PCLOS 2009, Mepis, or Sabayon. Start them out with a LiveCD and let them play with it. Once they're comfortable, move them to a dual boot setup. If dual boot isn't what they want and they want to go cold turkey, then go that way instead.

But in general, if you do it right the first time, and you go with some of the ideas I suggested above (or some other distro that meets their needs), you should not only get quick converts, but ones that'll stay longer, be more willing to hang in there through the bumpy times, and you'll get far fewer tech support calls because they can't figure something out.

Which reminds me. When teaching them about Linux and FOSS, also teach them how to find the answers they need on their own. If they know how to educate themselves, all you'll need to do is more or less be the mother goose, the one who hatches them and gets them out of the nest, after which they're able to survive on their own.

Remember, education is the key to getting new users. The culture of evangelism is dead. Or if it's not, it should be. There are still places for FOSS/Linux evangelism out there, but the times when it's appropriate are quickly growing few and far between. So let's focus on education, not indoctrination, and we should quickly see an explosion in growth the likes of which has not been seen in ages!

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