[lubuntu-users] Hardware Usage Stats

[scrooyahoo at riseup.net]

On 2016-08-16 10:42, Narcis Garcia wrote:
> First of all, I change "home" URL of the web browsers to other websites
> than distributor's and Google (DDG, Wikipedia, etc.) and disable APT
> stats feedback. This means no easy collecting of statistic data.

+1

I really don't like that browsers still have Google set as Home.
it is enough to have it sitting at the bottom of the list of the 
searchengine selection together with yahoo and bing

Startpage and ixquick are also nice engines what about presenting a 
random searchengine at launch and give people a choice out of ALL 
existing engines.  Scatter the load worldwide...   Introduce people to 
'the rest of the world'

The Duck also seems to be at risk now they have teamed up with my 
friends of yahoo....

Why give the biggest privacy invader promotion for free?
If people still want extra tracking then they can configure the homepage 
at will. ('make current page your home' is only one button to press)


> Educational collectives are the biggest group of people who asks for 
> old
> computer liberations (privative -> FOSS). Most individuals are victims
> of ignorance when viruses eat their normal computers (Windows) and,
> depending on "money level" they finish with computers (jump to
> only-mobile) or the "old" computer goes to trash just when they buy a
> new one.

I sometimes see elderly people buy expensive laptops to surf the web and 
play cardgames, and families with children go budget on the laptops that 
the children need for school.  But mum and dad need one with bling...

And people with a very low budget who get frustrated on a daily basis 
with a Old pc infested with a way too heavy new windows config. I mean 
everything is upside down and backwards at the same time.

For average non tech people, i see people who need computing power and 
just don't have it.
And wealthy people who use the latest macbooks to rattle on facebook all 
day long..


> Windows XP is still the most common OS I find in old computers that
> survive to the two main terrors for the user: viruses and new Windows
> usability chaos. Most of computers that arrives with Windows XP, go to
> LXDE-based installations. Next big group here is Mate desktop.

The last XP machine someone dragged in had still files on it from all 
the previous users. (including logins, passwords, porn, gambling 
accounts, and much more weirdness...)

I often wonder how others deal with this?  Contact them?


> "How many boxes run a distro that's no longer supported?"
> Answer in proportion: Most Ubuntu 11.04 (Gnome2) in my case, because of
> "no-Unity" policy between 2011 and 2013, and the typical setting to not
> propose to the user upgrading the OS version.

I also count DOS Win95, Win98, Vista, XP, and the older Mac OSX animals 
as 'distro's that are no longer supported'
There are many Leopard boxes that are reasonable hardware (Core2Duo) 
that are now tech-trash.


> "What display size is used on those machines?"
> For all groups I made installations to, desktop computers can guarantee
> 1280x1024 except touchscreeens typically used in POS (then the 
> guarantee
> can be 1024x768). And notebook/netbook can guarantee 1024?x600 real
> pixels in display area.

People seem to have upgraded their displays much sooner then their PC's
The smallest screens i encounter are the 1024x600 netbooks

15" i have not seen in a very long time, 17" is also very scarce, and 
most people even have swapped their 19" panels for widescreens already. 
Yet, PIII and P4 machines seem still to be used more often then you 
would expect.
Also the Intel i3 and i5 machines are not all that more powerful then 
the C2D and C2Q machines, its about the same power while consuming a bit 
less energy.  So having a lightweight Distro will make a big difference 
for these machines in the near future


> There is no large demand of CD-ROM. This is in the inverse sense:
> When you are recovering a computer with CD-ROM drive only, you look for
> an LXDE-based distribution, and better if it's well-known, supported,
> and mature.

The pc's that are phased out by us 'westeners' where do they go?  Are 
they all scrapped and recycled, or do they get a new life in area's 
where people have less money to spend?
This i why i would find it very interesting to see actual data of what 
technology is used in various parts of the world.
Keeping in mind that govnerments in those area's may have much more 
powerful machines in use and that would not give a good reflection of 
what the average man on the street is using.

I'm now using a 2nd hand i3 laptop that was used by some bureaucrat to 
type useless letters in his not-so-paperless-office to send me 
sheets-of-dead-trees-in-an-evalope.

Why do these people waste so much of our tax money on expensive hardware 
to do silly stuff?
And children who need to learn technology to bring this planet to the 
next level are bashing around on crap machines.

And once they go to highschool then they are forced to buy expensive 
Macbooks (mainly to type words in office applications)


A lightweight OS like Lubuntu sure will help to bring more balance for 
some people. But as long as the educational system includes a mackbook 
in a scolarship then that's just expensive for everyone.

Why buy Chinese made, american re-branded machines in Europe at a 
artificially high price when we can buy cheap chinese hardware that 
preforms just as good?  Or second hand office machines that are just as 
powerfull and half the price.

i5 laptops can be found for less the 200Euro  And they have the same 
computing power then a 'low spec' macbook that costs 1000 Euro.  Isn't 
it also a task for us to educate people about being more sensible on 
spending money on hardware?

The educational system needs brand new powerfull hardware
Bureaucrats can rattle on perfectly good 2nd hand machines, they do not 
need expensive machines to do simple stuff.

Lets make more fun of People who waste macbooks to maintain Facebook 
data.
Lets make fun of bureaucrats who use workstation-laptops to kill trees.
And lets explore options to provide the educational system with more 
computing power.

It sounds like Spain is far ahead in this area.  And that the spanish 
people are giving this more thought then in other countries. How did 
this happen? How can we make this happen in other places?


:-)

Is it the language barrier? Does it make that much difference to live in 
an area where the English marketing doesn't arrive?

I'm going a bit off topic i guess, but what can we do to get the 
computing power in balance.
Can a distro like Lubuntu be used as a tool to show people how much 
computing power they use, and how much sits idle?
And then let them compare that data with other people in the family.

For instance. Can the system monitor be used to log and plot long term 
computing figures? So that a family can give the person in the family 
the pc that fits best.

Can Lubuntu make spaceship-earth a better place and help all these 
billions of cosmonauts to stay alive?