[Ubuntu-SG] Ubuntu-related article on ST Digital Life

John Thng johnthng83 at gmail.com
Thu Aug 21 07:57:51 UTC 2008


2008/8/21 suhaw koh <kohsuhaw at gmail.com>

> Hi guys,
>
> If you have been reading DL's coverage of Linux issues, you would know that
> they have no clue of what they are writing about.  To understand why they
> print such crap, you gotta put yourself in their shoes.  Remember that they
> are a money-making publication covering the IT industry.  Imho, there are
> two forces that is pushing them to publish articles about Linux and of such
> low quality:
>
> 1.  Everybody who knows anything is talking about Linux/OSS.  Even though
> DL is pitched at the less IT-savvy crowd, such readers would obviously have
> heard their more IT-savvy friends, relatives, colleagues, etc talk about
> Linux and stuff.  And if DL doesn't publish articles about techie stuff that
> people are talking about, it will lose its credibility among its readers.
>
> 2.  But the heavy advertisers of DL (ie companies paying their salary, etc)
> are the sellers of proprietary software, hardware, etc, not the Linux
> companies.  So, if they were to keep the quality of Linux articles low, this
> will cause confusion among the readers, thereby generating negative feelings
> towards Linux and positive feelings towards proprietary software.
>
> So what can we do about it ?
>
> We can provide good quality write-ups about Linux and offer them to DL for
> publication.  If anybody else is interested in taking this up as a Ubuntu-SG
> project, let's flesh out more details when we next meet up.
>
> Cheers.
>
>
>
> suhaw
>
>
> 2008/8/21 <billy at ubuntu.sg>
>
> > Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung Myint wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 2008-08-20 at 11:32 +0800, Chen Xiangpeng wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> A bit is a huge understatement :)
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> I don't mind giving someone who can follow the steps the first time
>> >> without any errors a monetary reward. Unfortunately , I happen to be a
>> >> student now and can only afford 10cents. If anyone would like to take
>> >> the challenge , pls email me. Thank you.
>> >>
>> >> regards
>> >> billy
>> > To start of, I will like to thank DL for publishing this Ubuntu related
>> > article. This can help to build up awareness about Ubuntu.
>>
>> Normally , thats a good news. Not this one. Anyone who read it would only
>> have one impression about Ubuntu in mind. We are looking for publicity ,
>> not bad publicity.
>>
>> >
>> > Linux distros are designed in such a way that there are many ways to do
>> > things. There are the point-and-click approach as well as the cmdline
>> > way. However, I will not recommend new users to play around with the
>> > partition manger especially for things that can be done in a simpler
>> > way. When thing goes wrong, the OS tends to suffer in the blame-game. It
>> > is like how people blame XP when it crashes, although it may be due to a
>> > non-MS faulty driver. With this particular article, could you imagine
>> > what will happen when the user delete the partition, instead of resizing
>> > it? Although this is unlikely to happen if the user is careful and read
>> > through the warning dialogs, this illustrates how bad it can go.
>>
>> Anyone who followed it would not get it to the end. Nobody in the right
>> mind would. Who besides us knows whats a live CD in the first place? Where
>> to download it? Which version? What is 386? What is 64?
>>
>> >
>> > The DL article also mentioned that "upgrading ... will cause you to lose
>> > all your data". This will only occur when the user deviates from the
>> > default options. The common ways to upgrade, especially from a LTS to
>> > another LTS, will not cause data to be wiped out. When upgrading from a
>> > live cd, it defaults to the upgrade options, keeping your data intact.
>> > Another popular approach, upgrading from aptitude, will also not delete
>> > your personal files. The article is clearly wrong on that.
>> >
>> > If the aim of the article is to get people to backup their data before
>> > carrying out any changes to the system(which is a good practice and
>> > should be done), it can be achieved in easier ways as well. One can
>> > easily copy /home to an external storage. There are many such articles,
>> > that cater to user of all background, on the Internet.
>>
>> I don't think the aim is to get people to back up data ... then they
>> should give examples of backup softwares.
>>
>> >
>> > Anyone thinking of writing of DL about this?
>> >
>>
>> I have written to DL and also the author(who I am not sure but I suspect
>> he is the author) , no replies.
>>
>> regards
>> billy
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > Rui Boon
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ubuntu-SG mailing list
>> Ubuntu-SG at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-sg
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ________________________
> Koh Su Haw 许树浩
> http://suhaw.teresaville.org/
> Tel : +65 6236 8194
>
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> Ubuntu-SG mailing list
> Ubuntu-SG at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-sg
>
>
Ya publicity is important.I can say Microsoft is more of a better marketing
company than IT.
We must have enough reviews, write-ups published perhaps. Web is one thing.
DL might be another potential channel. Usually the reviews might be found in
linux websites(windows users might never visit) or Linux magazines(oh ya,
even I don't buy it).

Anyway, the most important criteria is to make the article as simple and
interesting as possible.

Regards
John
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