[Ubuntu-be] press coverage: Het Nieuwsblad, Het Volk (NL_BE)

[Amedee Van Gasse]

On Mon, June 5, 2006 10:11, Cedric De Corte said:
> First of all, let me present myself. I'm Cedric

Hello Cedric!

> On topic:
> I think best of all would be to advertise in a computer magazine. 50% of
> Belgians have internet at home (and I don't think that the, otherwise
> memorable, efforts of our ministers to get more people on-line will pull
> through) So the best way to reach the people with an advanced knowledge
> of computers would be that. IMHO there is another channel worth taking a
> look at: the gaming community. Fact: they are stuck with Windows, but
> the are power-users who appreciate stability and only use MS because
> they are forced to do so. I think many would fancy a dual boot,
> especially since a boot doesn't take too long on their super-pc's. That
> would also permit them to tweak win as much as they want since they
> don't expect anything else from it. Best way to reach them is gaming
> portals. But I have no contacts there :-(

I agree with your analysis that a lot of gamers are "windows power users"
(or at least think they are, but that's another topic of discussion).
Which brings me to two subjects where Ubuntu (and Linux in general) has a
lot of opportunities:
* extreme tweaking of the graphical desktop. I have seen this a lot on
gamer desktops, and I think Linux really excells in that field. It just
has to be communicated beter.
* games: I think this is still a problem, and the problem lies with the
game manufacturers. I don't think computer games *have* *to* be "libre"
software, they are more like films and music. But there isn't a lot being
done to make popular games work on Linux. Yes there is Wine and Cedega but
these are just workarounds, not real solutions.

Anyway, another way to reach a lot of people are the mainstream computer
magazines like Clickx. A positive review would help a lot.

-- 
Amedee