I am a fan of computer technology, and pretty much just use Linux here at Malindi in Kenya.
In reality it is a free operating system Linux, which is offered with most of the necessary software to use a common computer for free (there's' Internet browser, office, plans to watch movies in divx and hear the songs in mp3 ... all "free") stands as the ideal candidate to computerize the countries south of the world ... but .. there is a but ... at least for this' which deals with my experience here in Kenya: the cost of Internet connection.
and I 'happened recently to closely follow a very interesting website of an Italian school: The Institute Ettore Majorana di Gela .
The site really well done and edited by Professor Antonio Cantaro, and 'a mine of information given in a detailed, yet simple and accessible even for beginners, what is the free software, Linux and the danger of to be colonized by the giant Microsoft with all its products (windows in particular).
On the other hand 'in Italy or in the countries of "first world" in general we tend to forget that what we now take for granted those parts (and that means 'a fast Internet connection and open to all), it can not' be applied at the time such as in Kenya.
Here below an email I wrote to Professor Cantaro on the subject, so 'as e' was later posted on the school Ettore Majorana.
Dear Antonio,
Linux has good potential in Africa, but it 's important to try to understand the situation.
Africa and 'one country for many points of view, particularly in computer field is completely blank.
If you go inland to a village with a computer, imagine a laptop, and want to give to a woman in the village, will have no importance and will not make 'no difference whether it will be installed on windows , Linux, Mac OS or any other type of computer that One Laptop Per Child project by Nicholas Negroponte. The only thing you achieve, of course, after the dances of welcome by the whole village, and offering to eat a little polenta with them, will be 'to stimulate a meeting between the women of village (women in villages in Africa are those that have a minimum of entrepreneurship) that you wonder what will be 'the price at which they can place it to someone who maybe can use it in the city' where there is' the current (not always at all hours of the days anyway) and maybe the phone line, or field for mobile phones for connection to the internet. With money earned (up to $ 30 because 'do not have the slightest idea what a bargain like that anyway ... it costs a fortune for them) we will buy second-hand clothes from Germany for the children.
If you give a man of the village, and 'very likely that you'll see it disappear with a laptop that will sell' maximum of ten dollars, which will spend 'all hot in beer (beer is drunk in africa strictly hot) and then in the evening, being drunk, most likely beat' his wife and 'round later by the Board of women in the country and did not eat.
If the gift to a school, it probably impossessera 'the principal, also because' the school has no electricity, (or rather to tell the truth 90% of schools the country does not even have classrooms or schools, and not 'rare to see classes to teach children under a tree). and put it in ' in plain sight on his desk where he will take 'dust for the next three years without ever being turned on, then that has Windows or Linux will not make' no difference anyway.
CABLE-WORLD MAP - Clik image to enlarge 
In City & # 39, where he lives, however, the minority population, the situation and 'certainly better ... there 'the electric current (not always as I said before), and maybe even the internet, but how much is the Internet in Kenya, where the average salary and 'of € 50 per month (if to be of large sleeve)? . A 24-hour connection via analog modem last year cost up to € 300 per month, speed 'nominal 33.600bps, but in reality' speed 'Kenyan media on the telephone lines and' of 0.3 Kb / s at best, as long as you can find free online. Add to this the cost of the call, salty, and then to download updates from the Internet (required when installing updates from the ubuntu cd to install only the minimum) have to be rich and to obtain the legendary patience of Job, but also very lucky, given that the connection is going to fall 'certainly within half an hour or at most a' and now.
This year things are a bit 'better, for example, I now use a GPRS connection via my cell line, which allows me a connection "speed" of 4-5Kb / s during the day and at night can 'get even with 15Kb / s, but in this case the traffic will be billed for quantity' of data .. cost 10 shillings per Mb, ie, '10 cents. Excellent for control mail on a computer where you have installed a pirated windows, office with pirated, and pirated anything. If you install ubuntu, that would require, say, 100Mb of updates (if to be good), a trifle in Italy, would cost 10 € here ... a good week of work, which for instance one of my employees who kept the family (wife and four daughters to school) for a week at least. This expenditure
course and 'unsustainable for a family, but for most of the public or private office, then install windows innocently, who believe that together come free with your computer (a new computer costs on average € 250. assembled one of the worst waste .. Chinese production of a couple of years ago, typically composed of Intel Celeron 1.6 (unspecified), VGA on board (unspecified), on-board sound blaster (unspecified), 30 Gb HD, Monitor CRT 14 "(yes we still sell ..) 1024x768 resolution interlaced that hurts your eyes just looking at it off and you fulminera 'typically after the first 6 months of use ... just in time to expiration of the warranty 6 months exactly.
With windows pero 'know that will install all the programs they want to spend certainly less than that of the various programs download ubuntu. Sure .. piaratati programs that can be found at 2-3 € .. but this 'normality' ... do all the shopping.
Things may improve in 2009, when will 'finally completed the "missing link" as I call it, a submarine ridge that will link' finally Mombasa (and consequently the whole of East Africa) with the rest of the world (UAE to be precise). I attach a picture of the current situation of the world back ... As you can see East Africa is not 'connected and must rely on expensive satellite connections to that of the monopoly provider (in cahoots with corrupt politicians do a roaring trade in this situation), are the main cause of these high costs of connections.
in the office I use opensuse, 'cause with it, and' much more 'easy to set up a myriad of programs from the DVD that you can' download from the internet (which I do a download from my friend Italy with the ADSL and then send me mail).
On my personal laptop I tried to install Kubuntu, send free fattomi by Canonical (excellent initiative) but then me and 'almost cost the equivalent of three Windows Vista licenses in connection costs to be able to upgrade to level opensuse's office. Then Canonical wrote to itself, making this more than in Africa 'that free cd should preferably send the free DVD, especially if they want to live up to the name "humanity' to others."
never obtained any response.
So I decided to buy a DVD (kubuntu 8.04) from their online store (9 € I think), but honestly I can not install programs from DVD, each time trying to download from the internet anyway, even if the program package management I have disabled all sources of outdoor installations, leaving only the selected canonical dvd ...
short, the conclusion and 'In my opinion in the current situation and 'more' difficult than Linux to take root in Africa than in Europe, where people can 'read computer magazines that explain the differences and advantages of free software. Benefits (at least the economic ones) in Africa, where all administrations use pirated software, are canceled.
However I know that my openSUSE 11 dvd copy it and distribute it to anyone who can ask me .. and it works great with my internet connection and we do everything .. pretty much everything except autocad, I do turn on a virtualbox with windows xp pirated (sic) and with which I can also go to my old USB scanner that has no working drivers for linux ..
I try to do as much publicity as' a Linux atrovarmi to any person in the office, or when I'm around with my laptop with Kubuntu and I do see the effects of compiz, or as is compatible with all ... but I can not say 'and' free '... here and the only windows'. At least until Uncle Bill will allow '... probably when it suits them in a "virgin soil" we think that there is only one way to operate the computer ... you switch it on and you see the logo "windows" xp, or view it ... pirated free and does not care for this and the microsoft 'a small investment for a future as a monopolist, as it did in Europe to recover in the war against Netscape bowser ..
I send you a couple of articles on the missing link
Addressing Africa's 'Missing Link'
MaldiMalindi
Sore Malindi and 'my blog.
Best wishes from a sunny Malindi,
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