Well the wait is finally over and the results of the survey on Linux usage by girls in Ladies Hostels is out. The survey has shown that GLUG-Durgapur has tremendous growth oppurtunity among the girl students. Out of the total 228 girls who participated in the survey, 51 use different distributions of Linux regularly either in their own personal computer or in departments as a part of sessionals. 124 girls want to use install and use linux regularly but they havent still because of lack of basic linux knowledge. Out of the 124, only 19 are from software branches(Computer Science, Information Technology and Master of Computer Applications). This shows that huge number of students of non-software branches are not only becoming aware of presence of Linux but also want to enjoy it. Also according to the survey, ____ out of ____first years want to use linux and nearly 80% of first year girls are registered members of GLUG-Durgapur. Also there are 11 students who are really “linux users” but are not registered member of GLUG-Durgapur.
In case of distribution, Opensuse is the leading Linux distribution among girls. Out of 35 girls who have installed and use linux in their personal computers, 16 use Opensuse, 7 use RedHat Enterprise Limited, 5 use Fedora, 4 use Ubuntu and 3 others forgot to mention the distribution they use, hopefully they dont forget to use linux. Some of the interesting points I found is, one girl uses Opensuse 11.2 version(11.1 is yet to be released), and also some girls use linux distribution called Windows.
Some of the common problems faced by girls while using linux are:-
- Audio and video problem.
- Frequent crash of computer.
- Problems with downloading and installing softwares, like VLC.
- Internet problem.
- Less User friendly.
- Dependencies problems while installing softwares.
- Voice chat softwares like Gtalk not available.
