From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Nov 9 10: 5:37 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from rush.telenordia.se (mail.telenordia.se [194.213.64.42]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6944F37B479 for ; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 10:05:33 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 12850 invoked from network); 9 Nov 2000 19:05:25 +0100 Received: from bb-62-5-7-17.bb.tninet.se (HELO marbsd.tninet.se) (62.5.7.17) by mail.telenordia.se with SMTP; 9 Nov 2000 19:05:25 +0100 From: Mark Rowlands Reply-To: mark.rowlands@minmail.net Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 18:59:44 +0000 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.1.99] Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" To: "Daniel Taghioff" , References: <000b01c0490e$40096060$6337073e@oemcomputer> In-Reply-To: <000b01c0490e$40096060$6337073e@oemcomputer> Subject: Re: A simplified operating system for developing countries. MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00110918594401.28899@marbsd.tninet.se> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tuesday 07 November 2000 22:58, Daniel Taghioff wrote: > > I am studying development studies in London, and I am interested in low > cost internet technologies as a tool for allowing people to organise > themselves to improve their social situation, espaecially in the third > world. > > I am looking around at low cost networking solutions like Linux, freebsd > and netbsd. What I am looking for is the simplest possible operating > system, which takes the least possible disk space, and will run on a the > largest possible range of 486 and pentium hardware, allowing text download > form the internet and simple spreadsheet and wordprocessing functions. > > The idea is that with a few floppy disks and a refurbished computer (with a > modem), people with access to a phone line (not as simple as it sounds) in > the developing world will, with very little previous experience of > computers, be able to install such a system and access information from the > internet in a text format, without outside support. > > Is this possible? > Is anyone already doing this? > Is anyone interested in doing this? I was going to write a long rant but this aint the place. I think food, water, shelter, democracy, rule of law, freedom from interference by well meaning western technocrats, come a little higher up the list than the ability to surf Slashdot. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message