Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 00:50:13 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: An idea for promoting FreeBSD Message-ID: <353BED45.7F185851@uk.radan.com>
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I've got an idea for helping promote FreeBSD without costing vast sums of money. Why not get together a fully working, but cut-down (i.e no source etc.) version and get it distributed on the cover CD's of computer magazines? Over here in the UK Linux has appeared this way several times in the last few years, which was how I first tried it though I've switched to FreeBSD as I wanted a more SunOS 4.x like environment. Personal Computer World, which had Red Hat Linux on it's CD about 6 months ago, actually invites people to submit s/w for inclusion, the following appears in every issue - "Personal Computer World is keen to promote quality software & would like to hear from you if you are interested in having your product included on a future cover disc. Please telephone Afshan Nasim on 0171 316 9761 or e-mail afshan_nasim@vnu.co.uk" Now PCW's average monthly circulation for Jul - Dec 1997 was 141,575 copies, which is probably nothing compared to circulations of US mags, but think about it, you get 140,000+ copies of FreeBSD distributed for free to people who haven't asked for it & there's going to be some, possibly a lot, who will give it a go - wet Sunday afternoon (over here at least :-( ), pubs shut; "I know, I'll have a look at that Unix thing on the CD...") What's needed is to put together a version of FreeBSD that can run from the CD (like the live filesystem on disc 2 of the CD set), booted either from a floppy or from DOS (both of which FreeBSD can already do), totalling no more than maybe 200-250 Mb. As the majority of those buying the mag will probably be Windozers some thought needs to go into the design of the demo version. I'm not saying that it should be made a Win95 clone but it should be something that will be intuitive to Windoze users. I suggest a set-up something along the lines of: XWindows (of course!) KDE desktop (should make Win95 users feel at home) Netscape Communicator - setup with a special "Welcome to FreeBSD" home page which contains some useful basic info and links to the FAQ & Handbook (on the CD, not the Web site) Acrobat Reader GUI editor (don't want to frighten them with vi/emacs) xv (a good match for Paint Shop Pro) xman xterm (for the more adventurous) a selection of games (Windows users remember) That's my suggested selection for starters but KDE users should be able to improve on that, I use OpenLook (olvwm) lots of shelltools & vi so I lack imagination & artistic flair ;-). OK so it won't be super fast running off the CD, but when I tried Linux that way it was usable (just) on a 486sx33 with 8Mb RAM and a quad speed CD, so a Pentium, 32MB, 24x CD should work well enough. There should also be clear instructions for installing the demo onto the HDD for those who get hooked, and perhaps a shell script for taking the user through setting up UserPPP so they can connect to the Net (first stop www.freebsd.org). It requires the time and effort for people to put it together and test it, but not a great financial investment, make a master copy to send out to the mags and they put it on thousands of CD's (unless of course they charge if it gets included, but I don't think so). What does everyone else think? If one UK mag (not the biggest selling) has a circulation >140k it shouldn't be difficult to get a million copies world-wide. Even if we don't get a lot of new users at least the name FreeBSD will get a higher profile. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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