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Re: GNOME Success Story

You know Murray, this would make a great article for GJ if you're
willing to write the article (or someone else).  Like a human
interest type story instead of the usual focus on tech/reviews type
articles.

sri

On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 06:23:54PM +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:

CCing marketing-list about this immigrant/refugee-support center in
Austria.

Thanks Ralph, that's the kind of thing I'll be looking for: advantages
and experience for the admins and the users, and details about that.
You've already given me lots, and I'll try to fill it out when I visit
you. How about Wednesday 6th July, approx 14:00?

I'll also try to talk to the users so I can describe some of the things
they do. In this case, communication and presentation will obviously be
important themes. And I wonder if you offer the UI in various languages,
or encourage only the use of German?

If you still have slides/notes for your LinuxTage Linz presentation,
that might be useful, but I'm more interested in the big picture than in
the technical details. However, I'd be happy to help you provide
feedback about technical stuff.

Many thanks.

On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 17:38 +0200, Ralph Aichinger wrote:

Am Mittwoch, den 29.06.2005, 16:46 +0200 schrieb Murray Cumming:


I must visit Linz again soon. I wondered if I could visit Pangea and get
some information, so I can write up a GNOME success story, with some
human details. We are trying to get smaller interesting stories instead
of big vague deployment stories.


Hello Murray, thanks for your interest!

I would love to show this place to you (having a bit of a bad cosncience
because I did not mail back to you, when we first had contact).

Not that our place is *that* great, but if you think it gives an 
interesting case study, I am of course willing to compile some
information for you and/or show you around.

I've done a small presentation at the Linuxtage Linz 2004, that focused
on my practical experiences with our thin client setup, otherwise
I will have to compile/collect materials. Please tell me what aspects
interest you most, and what materials would be helpful to you.

Some aspects of our project:

Like almost any NPO we are always short on funding. Therefore we 
use old computers given to us from government institutions (our first
setup came from the Land Oberösterreich, our current clients are from
the Magistrat Linz). These act as thin clients on a terminal server
(simple Athlon box with Debian, currently running Gnome 2.8).

Main uses are the usual "Internet Cafe" stuff (eMail, surfing, chat),
with a strong focus on teaching people to use these types of
applications (Some of our users have been to Europe only for a few
days when they come to us. Most likely Gnome is the first contact
with computing for many of our users.). To many of our users 
we provide a valuable lifeline to contact their friends and
family "back home" in Afghanistan, Africa or whereever (we have
had users from 30+ countries). 

Other uses are writing letters and other office-type stuff (job
applications mainly).

For our own office stuff we are also using 3 Gnome clients,
but also -- it cannot be avoided completely -- one Windows
PC. Interacting with government and EU institutions with
their various MS Office forms basically cannot be done 
without at least one Windows computer, unless you've got
*very* knowledgable and/or slightly masochistic people ; )

I am very happy with "my" Gnome setup right now, because of
following factors:

* very easy administration (our current hardware has seen 
  not a single reinstall since we've got it). Try that
  with Windows
* runs acceptably fast on our very old hardware  (PII, 64MB RAM
  for clients, Athlon 1700 MHz with 1 GB RAM for "server").
* Very little to mess up for users (and then it mostly is
  contained to their own accounts).
* Usability of Gnome could of course always be better, but
  it is good enough to let people use our computers who
  have had very little exposure to computers before 
  (see above) with very little help by us.

A previous technical implementation of this project (then
at the Hauptplatz in Linz) had Windows 98 on the clients
and stuff was a lot more troublesome then (virus problems,
hijacked homepages, people installing porn as background
images, driver problems, etc.) basically then always
approx 30% to 50% of computers were out of order,
as far as I can remember. Now it is never more than
1 or 2 at once, mostly hardware problems (10 year
old CRT monitors "burning out" during hot summer
days, dead mice etc.).

Current shortcomings: Sound could be better (currently we 
use esd).Local media (floppies) are not that important, but a 
*good* solution for that is missing too. These are
of course problems of the terminal server setup,
not of Gnome itself.

Currently we have 9 seats for our users, 3 in our 
office, and the one Windows PC (we "split up" our
organisation, and created a "Verein" for this
project, I think we had more stuff back when I
wrote you first). I don't know if that is large
enough as to be interesting. Currently there 
are some 300+ active accounts (different users).

We are hoping to expand and add some more computers
in another room, but we will have to ensure funding
first (it is a permanent "fight" to get the money
we need to cover our operating costs), but above 
numbers are our current status quo.

I think I could also give you some DVDs on 
Medea (we were originally a "sub project" of
the Verein Medea), but I think that there
is very little relevant to gnome on these
discs, but maybe they can give some background.
Otherwise we have very little promotional
materials.

Just to make sure that people are here
when you come, our office phone is
+43 732 91 85 00, my mobile is +43 650 7257443,
and our internal mailing list is pangea-intern lists servus at
(a mail there might help if I do not respond ; ).
Also please tell me if there are certain aspects
that interest you, so I can prepare something.

Looking forward to your visit, and thanks for your
great work for Gnome! We (and our users) benefit
from it every day.

/ralph


-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com

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