1. What is TeenGNOME

TeenGNOME promotes GNOME among teenagers and young people. GNOME is a great desktop environment and if well promoted by targeting teens, GNOME will gain many users.

2. Aims

1. Convice teens that GNOME is a viable alternative
2. Provide resources for teens about switching to GNOME/Linux from Windows
3. Provide resources for parents on switching to GNOME/Linux
4. Provide information on dual-booting between Windows/Linux
5. Provide information on file formats and compatibility aimed at Teens (Music, Photos)

3. Promoting GNOME to Teens

3.1. Distributions

• Comparison of popular GNOME distributions - aimed at Teens

• Fedora Core - Many cutting edge features (will appeal to Teens), Bluecurve/Clearlooks is a clean and intiuative theme to use, Dual Booting is good, LiveCD available. The best choice IMHO. Any opinions?

Comments:

• I will vouch for Ubuntu. It has an easier installation procedure, though ncurses based. Less options means less confusion for newbies. Also, the whole distro is heavily PAM-ized. So there is no need for a root password. And being Debian based, it's inherently secure and stable, which FC can't boast of since they bundle a lot of untested software. What's more, Ubuntu has a great IRC channel #ubuntu on Freenode which is always busy with newbies and experts and it's one of the few IRC channels which are extremely newbie friendly. Just go there and ask a very trivial question, and see what reply you get. -- BaishampayanGhose

  • @BaishampayanGhose: What so you mean with "easier"? Easier as Fedora? I don't think so. I think there es not much difference in the installation when you stick to the defaults except that Fedora has a graphical install procedure. I am also not sure if people can handle ncurses any more. They are often used to mouse and don't know about tab-key and such things... ( i have copied this discussion be copied to GnomeLiveCd/LiveDiscussion please edit there if you think some things don't fit there!?). -- ThiloPfennig 2005-07-02 12:09:55

  • @ThiloPfennig: Well, I don't believe that everything has to be easier if it's graphical. Even though ncurses based, the Ubuntu installation is much cleaner. If you choose everything as default in Fedora, it'll more likely delete your windows partition and take up the whole space. But with Ubuntu it's better as you don't have to select `custom' for a saner installation procedure. And in any case, in Ubuntu you don't need to select any packages and you get a very good default install, in Fedora you have to manually select stuff to get something even close to usable. Windows users are certainly not used to selecting packages while installing Windows. -- BaishampayanGhose

• AFAIK, there is no Fedora LiveCD, and Fedora's GNOME is almost always more out of date than Ubuntu's GNOME, since Ubuntu regularly releases immediately after GNOME does. Those were the critical criteria for me choosing Ubuntu for the GNOME LiveCD. -- LuisVilla4

  • @LuisVilla4: There is a team discussing Fedora Live-CD and a mailing list. I would say let's see where they are at GNOME 2.12. For me Fedora looks much better. But I see that Ubuntu very much conentrates on GNOME. That's nice. -- ThiloPfennig 2005-07-02 12:09:55

• No distribution is perfect. Ubuntu has some quite out of date packages now (Mono for example) although Backports is trying to solve this. Fedora Core needs around 150mb of downloads of updates straigh after installing it. Debian will be too complicated to install (it installs both KDE and GNOME = Not good idea!). I quite like SUSE though because it has the best hardware support and the GNOME implimentation is resonably good but using SUSE might encourage teens to use KDE! I really don't know what to think. If Ubuntu's Backport project continues to do well, this may seem the best object. -- SebPayne

  • @SebPayne: I agree. But if you think Ubuntu is obsolete just because it has old Mono, Beagle, F-Spot, then you are wrong. Those are not included simply because they are too new and not well tested. It is done to make sure nothing breaks in the stable distro. And for that very reason, a somewhat conservative approach is taken. If you really want cutting edge stuff, you can always switch to unstable, which perhaps is more cutting edge than any other. And in any way, we are here talking about providing good stuff to teens, IMHO they'll not look at the version numbers and say, Man, it's soooo old!. As far as functionality is concerned, Mono 1.0.x is perfectly ok for newbies who are just migrating from Windows. Newbies just need an alternative, not flashy version numbers in developement releases. -- BaishampayanGhose

3.2. Clean, Easy to use Interface

• GNOME Interface is very customisable

• Websites such as GNOME Look provide many extra themes and backgrounds

• A recomendation of popular themes (ClearLooks, Industrial, Nuvola)

• Gartoon Icon Theme - Gartoon Shot 1, Gartoon Shot 2, Gartoon Shot 3

• ClearLooks Theme - Green Version, Blue Version (Brown is very different, Blue is more like Windows XP)

3.3. Instant Messaging

• Nearly all teens who use a computer use Instant Messaging.

• Gaim supports many popular protocols (such as MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger)

• Highlight good features of Gaim (multiple accounts, smilies, clean GTK interface, Evolution intergration)

Comments:

A teen told me what GAIM lacks: You can not search for friends. We should address this issue. -- ThiloPfennig 2005-07-01 08:40:05

• I also agree that Gaim could do with a few more such features. Searching of contacts is an important one as well a setup wizard when it first starts -- SebPayne

CameronHarris: Gaim needs to be generally more intuitive. Adding Accounts, buddy icons and names in MSN for example were too difficult for my 13 year old sister to configure.

3.4. Voice over IP (VOIP)

possible apps

• gaim-vv extended Gaim (will be merged into GAIM 2.0)

• GnomeMeeting

• is there anything as simple as Skype as free software?

  • yep: OpenWengo (uses qt)

• a new (promising) software I found is Shtoom

s.a. GnomeTelephony

3.5. OpenOffice.org 2

• Highlight compatibility for MS Word/Excel for compatibility with education establishment/friends

• Availablility of Microsoft Fonts such as Arial, Comic Sans MS and Trebucht MS

• CUPS for easy printing to inkjet and laserjets

3.6. Internet and Email

• Mozilla Firefox - Standards compatible. Works will most websites. Security Hole Free

• Mozilla Thunderbird - Easy to use. Cross Platform. Works with RSS and Blogs.

• Evolution - A very powerful Groupware client.

3.7. Free Software

• Many distributions are free (Fedora Core and Ubuntu)
• Updated every 6 months with latest software
• Define two types of free (Free as in speech/Free as in Beer)

3.8. Games

• Cedega for running Windows games on Linux

• Doom 3 runs natively

• Thilo mentioned BZFlag - Good game?

3.9. Photography, Video and Music (Multimedia)

• F-Spot - Excellent Photo oragnisation. Uploads to Picasa. Good for sorting photos from mobiles?

• Kino - Free video editing

• RhythmBox - iTunes like interface for Music

• Totem - Windows Media Player style

• Muine - An different style music player with a clean and easy to use interface

• RealPlayer - For .real files and other non-GPL formats

• Tomboy - A very easy to use note taking application

• Beagle - A desktop search tool similar to Google Desktop Search

• The GIMP - A Photoshop-like Image Manipulation programme

• Inkscape - definitely fun and powerfull vector drawing

Comments:

3.10. Portal

• A portal (in the style of MacTeens to provide reviews, security information and a general discussion place

• Hosted on gnome.org server? Who needs to be contacted?
• Mailing List?
• Discussion Forum?

• If hosted on gnome.org server, what about a domain redirection (e.g. www.teengnome.org --> www.gnome.org/projects/teengnome)

4. Promoting GNOME to Parents

4.1. Security

• Linux is more secure than Windows by default
• Extra money for Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam and Anti-Spyware is not needed
• Money for updating Anti-* protection software is not needed
• Online Shopping is safer
• Ubuntu - no ports open by default so less likely chance of being 'hacked into'
• File Permission System - What about a GTK/GNOME app to make controlling Home Folders easy for parents. Parents could be set up as 'root' users and use the application to control File Permisison.

4.2. Free (as in beer software)

• Run the latest and greatest software without having to shell out
• The difference between 'free in beer' and 'free in speech'
• GNOME contains all the neccessary applications needed with extra downloading

4.3. Linux in General

• Large companies like IBM, HP and Novell are adopting Linux

• Linux is large use already on servers - desktop is increasing
• Strong community to help out

5. Members

There is only currently one member of TeenGNOME but anyone is welcome to join.

• SebPayne - Founder of the TeenGNOME project and current Leader

• ThiloPfennig - Contributor

6. How you can help

You can help TeenGNOME by promoting GNOME to your friends and family using the information provided here. We are hoping to also provide posters which you can use. If you would like to become involved in the TeenGNOME project, email me.

7. Conclusions

• The main ideas of TeenGNOME are to remove the 'Linux is only for geeks' image and that it is great for anyone to use

• The main part of this project is getting a website set up (Drupal seems to best bet)

• A good logo needs to be made - incorporating ideas from the GNOME Logo, GNOME Markerting

• We need to highlight the excellent and cutting edge features of GNOME

• An 'Extras-CD' for Fedora Core needs to be made with software aimed at Teens

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