Full Circle issue 6: Ubuntu Youth
The future of Open Source is in the Young People of today; that's why this corner of the magazine is for young people or simply those who are young at heart.
Written by Andrew
I used to really be into the “Box Theory.” When you need something, there is a box at your local computer store to cover it. Inside the box was a CD, small pamphlet telling you what you can't do with the software on the CD, and maybe a coupon or two. Do you need a word processor? $200 and up will get you one of many colorful boxes at Best Buy. Have some viruses? There are boxes for that too. There were boxes for everything.
This drove me mad, but I thought it was the only way. In fact, I don't think I had a single bit of Free/Open Source software on my computer. It was all proprietary software that came from those boxes at Best Buy.
Now what about this: you get a new computer with Windows Vista. The next day, your teacher gives you a writing assignment. You still have yet to get Microsoft Word, and you have never heard of FOSS (and let's pretend for a moment that the Windows build of OpenOffice doesn't exist). There is no time to go to the computer store, and this paper is due tomorrow.
That's why I think that Ubuntu is the perfect OS for teens. You need a word processor? There's one preinstalled. Virus protection? The very fact that you're using Ubuntu is virus protection! What if your teacher wants some pictures with that paper? No problem! Just go to Add/Remove and find what you need.
Ubuntu is an excellent OS for teens. It's easy to install things, so whenever you need something like a music organizer, a word processor, or even a game or two, you can find it in Add/Remove Programs on the Ubuntu menu. All those royalties and license fees are a thing of the past.
Not only that, but it's fun to learn something new. I cannot even begin to tell you all the things I have learned in the past year or so that I've been running Ubuntu Linux.
Andrew is the founder of Teens on Linux which featured recently in the UK magazine Linux Format http://www.teensonlinux.org
