Some Proprietary software won’t work on Linux

If you are using software for computer reservations, Pay to print, or other reservation software that requires client software running on the computer system, its possible there is no Linux client that could be used in this situation.

In the small town of Alpine, Oregon, there is a elementary school that was closed down more than 5 years ago that was turned into a community center, staffed by volunteers with little to no budget (a thrift store run from the school that takes donations from the community seems to be their primary form of fundraising). A small library runs out of one of the larger rooms there that loans books with no library cards. Two computers were donated (or may have been left over from the school that was closed) are set up that provide internet access and word processing. In this all-volunteer and donation environment, the library had installed a copy of Fedora Linux on the computers. Once a patron logged in with the supplied account, there were links directly on the desktop to word processing and internet access. I was able to use the computers with no problems or cryptic error messages, and I would expect that most patrons had the same experience when trying to do basic computing tasks. This town is very close to my wife’s parent’s place, so I have passed through many times over the last few years, and the computers are still running.