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Ubuntu for Parents and Neighbors
I come into contact with a number of computers which are, for want of a better description, F**ed the F up. While this is often the fault of bloat-ware and can be, to some extent, remedied; A 1GB ram laptop running Vista that takes a good few minutes to load with a pretty basic install is another matter.
With this most recent laptop, there's a strong chance I'll be replacing the hard drive (Read error hangs.) and reinstalling, so I was thinking of adding an Ubuntu partition so the customer could try it out for speed and to have a fall-back if/when Vista goes tits up.
The main things that've been holding me back are the "Why doesn't this program work on my computer?" problem, Ubuntu's often quite experimental development, and having to explain how things are done/done different.
I remember Rym or Scott saying they'd installed Ubuntu on their parents' computer and wanted to know if anyone else had done it, and, if so:
1) How much have you had to help them? (A question every now and then, several hours, etc..)
2) What kind of things should I make known straight away?
3) Should I test this on a family member first?
4) Any other than the basic apps that I might need to add?
Also, please save any rants about the failings of the open source community for another thread.
With this most recent laptop, there's a strong chance I'll be replacing the hard drive (Read error hangs.) and reinstalling, so I was thinking of adding an Ubuntu partition so the customer could try it out for speed and to have a fall-back if/when Vista goes tits up.
The main things that've been holding me back are the "Why doesn't this program work on my computer?" problem, Ubuntu's often quite experimental development, and having to explain how things are done/done different.
I remember Rym or Scott saying they'd installed Ubuntu on their parents' computer and wanted to know if anyone else had done it, and, if so:
1) How much have you had to help them? (A question every now and then, several hours, etc..)
2) What kind of things should I make known straight away?
3) Should I test this on a family member first?
4) Any other than the basic apps that I might need to add?
Also, please save any rants about the failings of the open source community for another thread.
Comments
She decided to try Ubuntu, so I installed it for her, and I can't remember having to help very much with Ubuntu-specific stuff (OpenOffice doesn't count for me since she had used that on Windows as well). I showed her how to start Firefox, Evolution and OpenOffice. She figured out where Solitaire and Minesweeper are on her own pretty quickly
I said to her, just try stuff, see what happens, you can't break anything. This is important, since as a non-techy Windows user, you are constantly discouraged from trying new stuff and even intimidated by irritating dialogue boxes and random errors, especially with an old and busted Windows 98. I had to repeat it a few times, until I said "Don't call me before trying something new. I don't want to tell you stuff I think you can figure out by yourself. Just try. Call me when you actually tried it and something's broken and I will happily fix it." Until now I never had to fix anything, except for hardware that would have died anyway.
My mum has figured out a lot of stuff on her own, for instance how to copy pictures off her digital camera, burn them to CDs and print them. I don't think she would have dared to try that on her own on Windows. Oh, and fortunately, the weird software she has to use for her job runs fine in Wine.
As for additional apps, I can't remember whether I installed anything extra on that computer. If you have to do remote maintenance and support, you obviously should install stuff like sshd and some kind of VNC server I guess.
I switched them to Firefox, and then switched them to Ubuntu. It's good because now they basically do everything on the web. Migrating them to the web is the best because they can just use any computer. If the hard drive crashes, they can use a LiveCD. They don't play games, so if their computer really breaks, I can give them a netbook. ChromeOS might even be a future possibility.
The key things to watch out for, though, are that you install all the extra thingies for them. I had problems where my mom would want to watch videos on certain sites, but the codecs weren't in there. Make sure you install Flash, Java, and every video and audio coded imaginable. Make sure that when they browse so a site with videos on it, that it works. Good things to test are YouTube, CNN videos, Apple.com/trailers. Make sure they all work. As long as every website works, they'll be fine.
My recommendation is that, if you can get used to not having a library integrated with your music player, use Audacious.
If you really can't live without a library, you're going to have to decide between the limited functionality of Rhythmbox and the annoying lagginess of Amorok.
Also, why not Amarok? Because it uses real databases for the library, it can handle a huge library without screwing up.
Another thing is trying to not use QT applications in Ubuntu as you then have to load up all the QT dependency stuff.
Man, that's crazy, Ubuntu loads so fast that it makes waiting 20 seconds for QT and then Amarok to load makes it feel slow.