As the laptop distribution continues on various campuses of Lahore, the beneficiaries of this scheme flock the IT markets for laptop related services including operating system changes and software installations.
The walls and notice boards in educational campuses are flooded with the advertisements like “Install Windows on your laptop”, “Get MS Office and Windows Media Player”. The laptops are given with Linux-based operating system Ubuntu installed on it. Even the operating systems installed have upgraded versions available easily but the laptops came by default with Ubuntu 10.10 version while currently Ubuntu 12.04 is being used. However unfamiliarity of students with Linux-based OS has created a hoax amongst them and they are shifting to Microsoft Operating Systems Windows 7 or XP. Educational campuses surveys disclose that the rate of Windows installation is varied across institutes and ranges between Rs 150 and Rs 500. Similarly, in IT markets, the price for similar services varies from Rs 200 to Rs 500, while licensed versions of Windows 7 Professional installation costs some Rs 12,000 to Rs 13,000 per laptop.
Contrary to these genuine softwares, their pirated versions are easily available on a Rs 50 DVD. Students usually cannot afford that much prices while at the same time they fear the pirated versions may harm their laptops that is why they prefer to get the windows installed from IT experts.
A Pakistan Today survey showed mostly people advertising their services use these pirated versions and are earning quite a good bit of money out of it.
Yumna Munir, a student of Hailey College of Commerce, said that she had got Windows installed by a person who had placed an ad on her college’s notice board for Rs 500. The advertiser fooled the young lady by claiming that he had installed the genuine Windows 7 on her laptop that she recently got through the Punjab Chief Minister’s Free Laptop Scheme. An advertisement near M.A.O College reads “Get Windows 7 or XP for Rs 500 with full drivers and softwares on Shahbaz Sharif’s Laptops”. The advertisement states the service would be provided at door step.
Following the package details, there were written two cell phone numbers to contact for hiring the service. IT gurus point out that the Punjab government smartly tried to comply with the intellectual property rights by offering free laptops with pre-installed Linux-based open source operating system, Ubuntu. But the government should understand that in Pakistan IT growth is based on Microsoft led products, like Windows and Office applications, they maintained. Commenting on the Chief Minister Laptop scheme hardware, IT wizards indicate that though the machine processor is relatively based on new technology, it is slower than the latest iSeries processors. They point out that Dell Inspiron, the laptop given to students, is equipped with Intel Pentium B950 dual-core processor, which is designed for entry-level machines. Though, it is based on Sandy Bridge architecture, but many of the features, like Turbo Boost for the CPU part, Hyper Threading, AES, Virtualization (VT-x and VT-d), Trusted Execution or Intel Quick Sync, are deactivated.
A simple web search on Google also presents a similar picture about the laptops.
A processor benchmarking website (cpubenchmark.net) reveals that the processor installed in the Dell Inspiron n4050 is the most sluggish processor available in the market. The benchmark chart topper common CPUs indicates that the processor these laptops hhave in them, Intel Pentium B950 2.10GHz, is slower from most common processors, Corei5-2400, Core i7870, AMD Phenom II X6, Corei7-2630QM, Corei7 950, Core i7 960, Core i5-2500K, Core i7-2670!M, Core i7-2600 and Core i7-2600K.
Ofcourse it is a scam of Lohar brothers(NAWAZ & SHABAZ),THEY are businessmen and they are typical con artists who know how to fool ordinary people.These laptops must be refurbished ones sold by DELL for $30-40,LOHAR bros are not stupid to give out better laptops,dont trust em.
These laptops arn’t provided by Shahbaz sharif. These laptops bought from our tax paid income. I think if they built state of art IT labs in schools and colleges then students will get more help in their studies. Im 100 sure after a year you see stats that students spent time 90 percent on porn and media websites and 10 percent use these laptopa for studies purpose.
I totally agree with you, i my self get deduction Rs3500/- as income tax every month from salary, we have to pay other indirect taxes as well, but still i find unmaintained roads, streets, no parking, beggers on each signal, load shedding, water shortage, and a hell of other things.
And the CM is busy distributing laptops only to cover their shame and buy few votes. But litsen Shahbaz, vote is for IMRAN KHAN only, atleast for this election.
Salahudin Safdar Janab , sufi naik muhammad sahaib tusi lookaan day khayal tay kalam band kar ditay nay , lakin tusi app windows kinay ich karai c
First thing, Ubuntu 12.04 has still to be released by the end of this month. So that remark was useless.
I worked on a Pentium Centrino 1.7 ghz laptop while in university, for programming and also did some 3D rendering + game development and it worked great for me.
Now as compared to that this laptop with second gen processors are heaven. I don't assume you were expecting the students to get i7's or macbooks, cause after all students are getting these laptops for free.
I hate PML(N), but I do commend on this campaign.
I second you opinion, 2.1 Core2duo, 2GB Ram, 320GB HDD is more than enough for average person.
Merit based distribution is a good idea.
We should try to commend good work by someone instead of pointing finger at baseless facts.
Pfft In Australia you would pay $1000 for a bottom of the line laptop. or RS 100,000.
You're getting something for free which is actually pretty good, who the hell needs the fastest processor in a laptop meant for study? Or are they really for games, illegal downloading and pornography?
this was one the most rubbish article I have ever read……a waste of time…. by some one who probably did not get a laptop him self.
people are just not satisfied with nothing….
The extents that the Gatesmalware people will go to deploy their appalling products are incredible!
A person who don't know how to install windows HIMSELF do not deserves a laptop …:D
And why on earth one pays rs500 for windows installation …
There is a thing called internet , go there download the windows setup copy it to the usb and plug it in ..it will do the rest itself people…
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”……surely there is a moral in this somewhere? The laptop will not resolve the long term issues!! Its time to wake up. (However, take the laptops and vote for IK!)
Every Student , who is in university must know how to install the windows Friends and family loop is a thing to get free advises.
Thanks to the Govt that they have provided a laptop , why the media always emphasis on the bad side…
Lovely
@all PML(Laptop) supporters… please stop merit merit merit… what do you mean by merit? go anywhere in the world and there is a law which prevent sitting govts from announcing such schemes in the election year… i wish we had an independent election commission… can you please tell me one thing? Laptop was invented iin 2012? or PML(Laptop) was elected in 2012? they are there in the govt for the last 4 years but Laptops are announced only after 30th october Lahore… and btw we have seen the merit…Nawaz sharif, maryam, hamza etc distributing laptops? why? have you ever seen Musharraf or shaukat aziz giving out HEC scholarships to students in any universtiy? look at the international reports about the ghost schools in punjab.. sever shortage of faculty..but govt of punjab does not have money to recruit any teachers..but here they are trumpeting their merit… just to get a few votes..but they are just fooling themselves..the youth of the country is not for sale…
Overclocked it already. Running great on 7 64x. To all those bashing PMLN: YOU GUYS CAN SUCK IT! LAPTOP SHAHBAZ KA, VOTE IMRAN KA! =P
Lot of waste of money, intead if some solar panels were given to these brilliant students to use for their homes in this energy crisis.
This illiterate media man has no idea about computers. Yet he wrote article on it. In media matric fail people are the repoters. What a shame pak media. Pakistan mai media bhi doo number hai.What a bad luck for Pakistan.
If the media reporters are that fool, than why are you reading there report and also commenting on a media article. Media is not fool niether there reports are, it is us who want media to write what we want to read, but in real life its not possible.
And also everyone knows these Shareef brothers looted money of Pakistan before and are doing so today as well.
Have you any idea of sasti rooti scheme, Shahbaz said he will sell his jacket but will provide sasti rooti, can you find sasti rooti any where today? No.
Soon you will find these laptops stacked in computer centres like Hafeez centre, etc where they will be on sale.
please leave this useless talk look at yourself what are u doing in this country just passing worthless comments this scheme is good for those 50 percent students who need bt they have not so please find out the brighter side if you are a part of youth because youth know how to convert 1 into 100 i am a student and i can see many people are encouraged by this or peef scheme and about vote our country youth are sleeping in their bed rooms on the day of voting and leave the future of country on those people who have no idea about the power of vote we can just talk
I am lost for words on this campaign. There are schools in our country who don't even have a proper roof, furniture, books, faculty .. there are millions of parent in this country who don't have enough money otherwise they would send their kids to school for even basic education, infact there aren't enough "real" schools to do that. Yet our government is throwing away laptops like they are Saudi kings. It is not their goddamn money, it is our money. And I for one would've been much prouder if it was spent on a cause that solves the problem instead of just creating a ceremony. If not spending on schools, a much better substitute would've been free education token for 1 child for years .. which probably would've costed less than a laptop (I am talking about public school here). If it was IT that they were focusing on, they could've made IT hubs in the cities with free passes for kids studying in colleges who can't afford a computer yet still want to benefit from them. But ofcourse that is a long term plan that benefits the society, these stage actors, be it PPP or PML-* are only after short term election stunts. As for merit, they should've checked the financial background of the kids getting these laptops. I personally know of people who got a laptop who already have a laptop along with an iPhone/iPad etc. So I couldn't help but wonder if the same money could've been spend on a poor man's kid who can only dream of getting some decent education but isn't because he can't afford it.
This is NOTHING but a lame attempt to undermine the popularity of PTI amongst youngsters .. and I would be surprised and utterly disappointed if the youngster of our nation, who are our future, fall for it.
I think its a good project. But prolem creates when you give laptops to art students like social work, english, arabic, fine arts, education etc while CS, IT, SE, students are waiting just because they are students of evening classes??? How a revolution can come???
quaid e azam uni k brilliant students ki kia sirf ye galti hy k wo federal uni hy.please give us laptop.
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