Run cafe on free os

[sanju_nlp81]

Hi everybody !! Well am running cafe with 8 pcs BSNL broadband shared from server and all are running on pirated XP Pro. Hence, want to be a good man by opposing piracy. So, would like to setup with some free yet powerful OS. All PCS have a decent configuration. Using D-link switch and iball baton modem. Have some canon printers and scanners so driver to be kept in mind. Help me out!!

 

[FilledVoid]

Hi everybody !! Well am running cafe with 8 pcs BSNL broadband shared from server and all are running on pirated XP Pro. Hence, want to be a good man by opposing piracy. So, would like to setup with some free yet powerful OS. All PCS have a decent configuration. Using D-link switch and iball baton modem. Have some canon printers and scanners so driver to be kept in mind. Help me out!!

Nice, may I say I admire the fact that ou are actually giving this a try. But before you begin may I point to a couple of problems you might run across.

1. Instant Messaging.
Based on the Instant messengers your customers use you may/may not run into problems so you might wan to do some research on this. Previously when I tried this out there was no yahoo client I could run to use yahoo messenger. Gtalk and Y messenger were buggy on Wine as well so that made it a bit difficult.

Here is come information of installing Gyachi to get a Yahoo client on Ubuntu so refer to this.
*www.technixupdate.com/download-yah...with-webcam-voice-chat-photo-sharing-support/
Similarly there are methods for getting gtalk to work as well you can find them by googling it. However note the more messengers you include the more problems you might run into. Although you can use alternatives like Empathy , Kopete etc if the customer is willing to.

2. Willingness to Try.
I've seen people prefer to use systems they have used before rather than bother to even try out Linux Boxes at a cyber cafe.

3. Hardware support.
Making sure if youre other devices like scanner, printer etc work perfectly in Linux.

These are likely the main issues you will run into. The rest should be easy to handle for anyone. Just make sure you use a distribution which is widely used and has a large community like Ubuntu.

 

[Krow]

Nice, may I say I admire the fact that ou are actually giving this a try. But before you begin may I point to a couple of problems you might run across.

1. Instant Messaging.
Based on the Instant messengers your customers use you may/may not run into problems so you might wan to do some research on this. Previously when I tried this out there was no yahoo client I could run to use yahoo messenger. Gtalk and Y messenger were buggy on Wine as well so that made it a bit difficult.

That may be solved with the help of online messenger clients, for example:
www.meebo.com
*webmessenger.yahoo.com

Similarly there are methods for getting gtalk to work as well you can find them by googling it. However note the more messengers you include the more problems you might run into. Although you can use alternatives like Empathy , Kopete etc if the customer is willing to.

Gtalk can easily be accessed through Gmail, so one may ask customers to login through www.gmail.com

2. Willingness to Try.
I've seen people prefer to use systems they have used before rather than bother to even try out Linux Boxes at a cyber cafe.

Major obstacle this is. Many people want to use basic applications like M$ Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. Openoffice is at best, a little basic and not easy to get used for a M$ user. One should configure OpenOffice to save documents as default M$ options, eg: doc, ppt, etc, something which it does not do.

3. Hardware support.
Making sure if youre other devices like scanner, printer etc work perfectly in Linux.

ico once told me that his old printer worked out of the box on ubuntu. May be that is the best place to start?

These are likely the main issues you will run into. The rest should be easy to handle for anyone. Just make sure you use a distribution which is widely used and has a large community like Ubuntu.

I would suggest Linux Mint, preferably version 7 if installing without removing Windows, else version 8. This is because it comes with a design that is suitable for best out of the box work. No need to apt-get many things that one must in Ubuntu. Also, I think that Mint is easier to get used to if one is a long time Windows user.

www.linuxmint.com

 

[FilledVoid]

ico once told me that his old printer worked out of the box on ubuntu. May be that is the best place to start?

The thing about this is cyber cafes usually run Network printers which might have a hard time being recognized in Linux or being able to use all the features it provides by default. However there are quite a few that works.

Usually the best way to go around this is to slowly roll in one or two systes into the environment and see if the people can adapt to it and if not see if you can change ti to make their experience any better.

 

[thetechfreak]

Well,most version of Ubuntu, Linux Mint support D-Link...I have tried that out..get a latest version and install drivers..now thats a cafe i would really want to visit Probably one of the few "Open Source" Cafes?

 

[Krow]

Usually the best way to go around this is to slowly roll in one or two systes into the environment and see if the people can adapt to it and if not see if you can change ti to make their experience any better.

This, I believe is the way to go. Besides, people may actually go haywire with an unfamiliar interface in all machines. Start with one machine in Linux and the slowly rein the rest of them in.

 

[Tron91]

Another simple problem will be that of file sharing! File sharing is not a breeze in Linux like Windows.

 

[FilledVoid]

Another simple problem will be that of file sharing! File sharing is not a breeze in Linux like Windows.

What trouble did you run into?

 

[Tron91]

don't u need xtra software like samba, don't think it comes as default in most distros or gets installed by default