contentconsumer.wordpress.com — The author asks his girlfriend to perform simple tasks using a fresh Ubuntu installation. It's surprising how some of the simple things we assume to be easy are actually hard for someone who's never used Linux. Interesting insight into how ready Linux is for the desktop.
Apr 27, 2008 View in Crawl 4
mediaphileApr 27, 2008
All it took to get my technologically retarded friend to switch away from windows was a couple months of his girlfriend downloading stuff on Limewire, and the billions of viruses that came along with that. When formatting your Windows drive can't stop a virus because the virus has inserted itself into the bios, it's time to switch.But it was OS X I convinced him to switch to. He would have been even more lost on Linux, though at least he wouldn't have any viruses. He was able to pick up OS X in absolutely no time.
bassjunkieApr 28, 2008
I thought this was a very interesting article and it makes some excellent points. At times it isn't immediately obvious where something is or how a certain task is performed but the same claim can be made about any OS that is different from the one you use on a regular basis. I use Ubuntu at home, windows when at work and occasionally dabble in Mac OSX. When is comes to OSX I can usually find what I want by exploring the menu's and making an educated guess at how to achieve the task in hand. I had to do the same when I first switched over to Ubuntu and in part was the reason that I kept Windows on the laptop as a sort of safety net. I don't feel the learning curve was that steep and I don't mind (and even quite enjoy) hunting around for a solution to any problems online, and thankfully most can be fixed via the excellent forums or google.Having now been using Ubuntu for about 18 months as my main OS I have now got windows confined to just 1 computer in my house and have the other's all running Ubuntu exclusively, with atleast 2 running without a GUI! My kids have a machine with Edubuntu installed and love it, my wife is quite happy to use it for browsing the internet, e-mail, IM and word processing. She was quite impressed the other day when I showed her Synaptic for the first time - she wanted some DTP software - and actually ended up installing a few other apps at the same time!Some of the problems encountered in this article could be easily alleviated by the suggestions the author makes such as more intuitive search and file system naming. The problem with flash is an exception that only happens with Youtube, otherwise you are guided through in the installation with a nice handy plugin manager.
gudnblutsApr 28, 2008
There's one OS where you drop drives on the wastebasket to dismount them (it doesn't erase them at all). That's less intuitive.
yodajonesApr 29, 2008
There is nothing in this article that years of windows learning hasn't taught people already. Ubuntu is new, get over it and figure it out. Changing Linux to be "like Windows" is plain stupid. I taught a woman Windows who left the work force to raise her daughter when IBM came out with the typewriter with the "ball" instead of individual arms. That was high-tech in her day. After six months she was running Windows and doing all sorts of things like your girlfriend did not know how to do in this article. Ubuntu/Linux does not need to change, people need to learn and be adaptable. If that woman could do it so can you punk ass kids.
endermbApr 29, 2008
I'm in one right now. I do these repairs for nothing and my girlfriend appreciates that. In my eyes if you can help someone then you should.
mceeMay 19, 2008
I don't really think Linux relies on it any more than any other OS does. It's just because it's different from what most people are used to. It'd be a lot like not knowing how to do things on a Mac the first time around, and having to google it. I've sat at a mac before and actually done stuff like surf the net, but it's not like I automatically know how to use a mac just by sitting down. Sometimes things take a little bit of learning to do, either via a friend, who may not be an option, or google. Familiar does not equal user friendly.
dawnflowerMay 29, 2008
I admit I didn't read half of your post (because it's toooooo long ~_~'') but if you're going to set up stuff for your gf to use (you probably would have to do the same for windows anyway)you could have solved several problems up there easily (admittedly, I'm a comp sci major but these stuff are pretty basic and you only have to set it up once)1. MS office -> crossover office or virtual box (a free, stable, and has good integration) 2. games (if it's only basic stuff like sims etc) -> try wine, cedega.about the performance issues in openoffice vs MS office, if you have a recent laptop with a reasonable price range of about 1000 USD, you would run it just fine. programming wise - while admittedly stuff like .NET will net you a job fairly easily (lookie, pun ^^~) at least I find programming on linux/unix platform a lot easier. true enough games aren't Linux's forte, but for work - it's a reasonable alternative. Like, Mac OSX, they don't have the games as well, but they're still sold well. uhmm...so what I'm trying to say is, linux is a viable alternative as a productivity platform if everything is configured like it should for a novice user.
dilibauNov 11, 2008
that's because she's your wife, not your girlfriend...