Give an Internet Freedom Disk

An anonymous reader, perhaps the blogger himself, writes to tell us about a new blog aimed at getting non-techies excited over the idea of running from a Live CD. The blogger doesn't call it that, preferring instead "Internet Freedom Disk"; Linux is never mentioned. The submitter adds: "This is just a great gift to drop on your non-geek friends and potentially wake up a sleeping giant." Cheap, last-minute, and you can make them yourself. The blogger isn't selling anything; he provides links to Ubuntu and Knoppix Live CDs. Or pick your favorite.

You lost me at

[Timesprout]

getting non-techies excited over the idea of running from a Live CD

Normal people dont get excited about operating systems. PC's are either tools or toys to them. Getting another operating systems is about as exciting as changing the wash cycle in their dishwasher for most people.

hmm great!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Retake your Internet! Once again browse any page! Click any item! Surf with impunity!

1 - I've failed to "take my internet" so far, how will I retake it?
2 - I can already browse any page
3 - I can already click any item
4 - Does this mean I can download kiddie porn without fearing the police?

Seriously though, as soon as I read that first line, I stopped perusing this blog. It sounds very silly and useless...

Brill

[Rexz]

A blogger linked to Ubuntu? Great story guys. Very worthy of the front page.

Security?

[delirium of disorder]

It looks like the purpose of this CD is to protect users from Trojans, spyware, and other malware. The author of this page encourages users to click on anything they want on the web and not worry about the source of the executables that they are running. Encouraging users to continue to be ignorant and reckless sounds like a horrible idea. Sure, right now there doesn't happen to be much malware for Linux, but if more dumb people start running Linux, it will be produced. Even though Linux is more resistant than Windoze to being broken into by traditional exploits, if the user deliberately runs some malicious program, the system cannot protect itself. No system that allows the user to administer their own machine can protect from these kinds of attacks. We need to educate users AND give them Linux. Doing either one without the other will leave the our public Internet in worse shape and our fellow users just as bewildered and dangerous.

Why?

[hikerhat]

Why would my non-technical friend want to transform his computer from a fully function system, with all his documents, programs, music, etc into a semi functional linux system running off a cdrom? Removing the word 'linux' from the name of the cd doesn't make it more appealing. And what does 'internet freedom' mean to my non-technical friend? Will he be able to get to more web sites? No. Maybe less given that linux web browsers can only render a subset of the pages windows browsers can. Can he save new files or music to his live cd? No. All your work goes away when you shut the computer down.

Exactly what freedoms are available to you when you run a linux live system off a cdrom that are unavailable to you on your fully functional windows system?

Re:Bleh, the end of the blog is a party pooper

[flyingfsck]

You won't believe how many geeks(!) I had to help to burn an ISO file on their Windoze PC. Most Windoze CD burning programs make that simple process very difficult/impossible.

"Linux Is Never Mentioned"

[emjoi_gently]

Sorry, but this reminds of of Scientologists offering "A Free Personality Test".
Omitting to mention, oh by the way, we're a Weird Religious Cult.

Re:yea...right...

[karnal]

I don't think I was ever allowed to put the "cheese" on the wonderful macaroni art I used to make as a kid.

I probably would have just eaten the cheese powder anyways.

Re:You lost me at

[BlowChunx]

Tell this to my neighbor who put out a Pentium 2.4 machine on the curb because it gave her a BSOD.

Show her a live CD, and it's all kittens after that.

Re:Security?

[Nasarius]

Or you're one local root exploit away from having your hard drive wiped.

Re:We must all use the internet freedom disk

[Sj0]

If the jump from using firefox in windows to using firefox in linux is so troublesome, I think you've got problems that won't be fixed by any CD...

Give Bibles

[EmbeddedJanitor]

.. and get them excited about religion.

You'd probably get pissed if someone tried to force their ideology down your throat so why should you force yours on others?

Re:You lost me at

[jrockway]

Well, it would probably be cheaper to just eat off of dirty dishes, right, so why bother with the dishwasher at all?

(Same thing with heating / cooling your house. It's just going to get hot after your turn off your air conditioning, so why bother using it all?)

Guess who's retarded?

[morboIV]

I think this is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen on Slashdot.

Why would anyone want to routinely run from a LiveCD. Ubuntu from a LiveCD runs like shit, and what about downloading stuff? The moron suggests you just put it flash drive. Yeah, and then I'm going to take out the LiveCD and run the file I just downloaded on my normal OS. So I'm still going to need virus protection, and I'm still going to need to be sane about where I get files from on the internet, but I'll just add ages of fucking around with a LiveCD. And how about bookmarks? You going to explain to people how that's going to work? Or how about in the time it takes to download a LiveCD, tweak it to your liking, and burn it, you just install a free anti-virus program, a free firewall and firefox?

A LiveCD will be about as useful as a coaster as it will be as an 'IFD'. If some moron gave me one of these things I would have absolutely no choice but to beat some sense into them.

vmware player

[pikine]

One advantage of running off a live CD is that it doesn't, under normal circumstances, touch your hard drive. This is why the author claims that you don't have to worry about trojan, viruses, spyware, etc. It's not that you don't get infected, but these malware programs are erased from main memory everytime you turn off the computer. However, the author assumes that a malware doesn't scan your computer and mount existing physical hard drives to infect. This could conceivably happen.

There is a better way. Get VMware player and an Ubuntu virtual machine appliance, and run Firefox off it. That also protects your host computer, and you can always revert your disk image to a pristine stage if you were infected. At least with great likelihood, malware from a guest OS does not penetrate virtual machine.

is this the same as...

[Anonymous Coward]

freedom fries?

freedom toast?

freedom tickler?

stupid fucking Americans.

Re:You lost me at

[supremebob]

Not only that, but most "normal" people aren't really interested in changing their operating system. I got sick of hearing my Dad complain about how much Windows XP sucked, so I gave him a Red Hat Linux distribution for Christmas along with the other gifts that he asked for a few years ago. Even though I offered to help him with the installation, I doubt that he even cracked open the jewel case on those CD's. Some people are just more comfortable with the devil they know, I guess.

Yeah

[goldcd]

What a great idea. Give your parents a CD to shove in their working computer.
I can feel the love already coming from my Mum: Why does it take an age to start? Why does it say it can't install my wifi driver? Now I've managed to install a Linux Wifi driver, what's my Hex key? Where's IE? Where've all my bookmarks gone? What exactly have I gained by this gift?

Re:Give Bibles

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, KJV was the closest to a translation written by actual literary types. Even shakespeare may have helped out.

Re:Give Bibles

[Pantero Blanco]

Offering someone a Bible isn't forcing anything down their throat, and neither is giving them a LiveCD. Do you seriously feel oppressed when a Jehovah's Witness/Mormon/PETA member tries to hand you a pamphlet?

Re:I tried it.

[NineNine]

People hate being offered items that are "free". To most, that word usually translates as "promotional item" or "stuffed full of ads and marketing surveys".

Or "Dear god, this crazy religious nut is trying to recruit me into his cult. How awkward!"

This will not change the status quo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Although there are always the minority of "non techy" users who will appreciate f/oss like linux, the majority simply do not have the interest or ability.

Re:We must all use the internet freedom disk

[the_bard17]

I'll bite.

Odds are, if I slapped together a Windows-based "Live CD" (BartPE, most likely), it wouldn't have the drivers for your scanner or your printer, either. There's a lot of printers out there... and quite a few of them have sizeable drivers (*cough* HP *cough*).

Besides, I thought the point of the "Internet Freedom Disk" was so that you could browse the web while being relatively carefree? Exactly where does a scanner fit into that usage? I can understand the need for a scanner, but mostly concerning editing/duplicating photographs or saving important paperwork, etc. Needing a scanner to browse the web? That's stretching it a bit.

Point #4 is a little inflammatory, but I'll address it anyway with a few counter arguments. First, odds are that your "commonly used applications" have a license that precludes them from being distributed on a LiveCD. It might be fine for you to slap it onto a LiveCD for your own personal use (realistically, who's gonna find out if it's not?), but if you post the ISO up on the web, somebody's probably going to start hollering. Especially if your "commonly used application" involves certain Microsoft products. For that matter, it's safe to say that you can't build your Windows LiveCD, then toss the ISO up on the web, due to those same licensing concerns. Second, once again this is a "Internet Freedom Disk." Nobody said anything about a "Productivity Freedom Disk" or a "Media Creation/Editing Freedom Disk."

The only argument I can see in your favor is that not all web content is able to be viewed from this LiveCD, most notably certain streaming video (pretty much any site that requires Windows Media Player). I have to assume this, since I can't view this content on my own Linux desktop (CNN anyone?)

Who's Gonna Suppport Them?

[DavidD_CA]

I learned recently (it took me a while to really learn this lesson) to stop recommending computer systems to friends and family.

I used to go as far as helping them pick out peripherals, specs, and even order it with them on the web. Now I say "Go to dell.com and get at least a gig of RAM." The conversation stops there.

Why? Because the more I help influence their decision, the more they expect me to support that decision afterward. They're not being mean, they're just naturally extending the help I initally offered them.

Why would I want to give a non-geek a Linux disk? They're going to come back to me with all sorts of questions about software compatibility, drivers, printing, etc. No one else they know will support them, even paid companies like their OEM or their ISP. And if they're running a business off this computer, then now I'm liable for what may happen to it.

When will the geek world realize that Linux is not the answer to everything?

Re:Uh...

[ChameleonDave]

I don't get some of the vitriol poured out here. If someone wants to encourage the use of Linux, that seems fine to me. If they were sitting on their arse playing Civ IV, you wouldn't bother criticising them and yet it would be a bigger waste of time.

As well as using a PCLinuxOS/Windows dual-boot, I sometimes run Puppy Linux from a thumb drive on this computer. Here are the advantages:

• It is much safer than Windows, and even a bit safer than running Linux from the harddrive.
• After booting (which is about as long as PCLinuxOS or XP), everything is incredibly fast.
• What I do is not limited to this computer.

The third point links in with the major advantage of my portable, 90MB Puppy. This Xmas I'm going to be staying with the in-laws. Instead of messing around with their crappy Windows machine, I'm going to be able to plug in my thumb drive and instantly access all my e-mails, Firefox favourites, and most important documents.

It will be particular cool because Puppy will allow me to leave the computer on, checking for e-mails. You see, my mother-in-law only allows her Windows machine to be online for a few minutes at a time because she is so paranoid about malware. All I will have to do is convince her that Puppy is immune to viruses and I won't have to keep turning the computer back on every twenty minutes.

I wouldn't recommend replacing any installed OS with Puppy, but it is a valuable tool. Setting it up would be beyond most people, but i believe that if I gave someone this thumb drive as a Xmas gift, saying "this thing is like a floppy, but it can hold a gig of your favourite stuff so you can use it when you're round your mate's house; plus if you put it in before turning the computer on, it boots up this Linux thing that lets you surf with zero chance of viruses," I'm sure they'd find it to be a cool little gadget.

(My first /. post)