Ubuntu opportunities growing for me

[SonicSteve]

I'm an IT tech in a school. I've been doing it now for about 5 months. It seemed at the beginning that I would have many opportunities to show off Ubuntu. A few weeks back I gave a copy to one of the students for the first time. Perhaps it's just a relationship thing. Then over the last few weeks I've installed it for one girl on her Dell Inspiron 8200. It was installed with Win XP and completely trashed with all kinds of things that made it unusable -literally- so I explained that while Ubuntu isn't windows and she can't run windows apps it isn't vulnerable to all these things that destroyed her Win XP install. While doing this a few other students took notice. They were so interested that they wanted to give a shot and I gave them a CD. I also installed Ubuntu for a fellow who only uses internet, email and MS word.
The deal I make people is this. After a few weeks I install Windows for them if they find that Ubuntu isn't working for them or if they simply don't like it. I explain what Ubuntu is and all the pros and cons. I try to make them aware of what they're doing in hopes that the right perspective will aid their transition.
Essentially these two cases are my test trials.
Both windows users who trash windows installs. Both can benefit from a system that has no spyware, virus' and malware. A system that essentially can't be trashed the way Windows can.

[Murrquan]

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out! ^.^

[matthewcraig]

Just wait until you graduate, if you think the opportunities are good now. Knowing Linux / UNIX will land you better paying IT jobs and (more importantly) more interesting IT jobs.

[SonicSteve]

Perhaps I didn't communicate clearly enough. I am an IT administrator in a school. Graduation is long past for me.

As far as the opportunities go, the installations are still alive. I'll be seeing the one fellow on wednesday night. The other one needs more time spent with it. The student had to take the computer before I could finish with it. The install was completed but it needs things like flash. A few good themes, proper codecs, simply some updates also. I hope one day she'll bring it back so I can finish what I started.

[SonicSteve]

So I saw my friend on Wednesday. I can tell he's going through some windows withdrawl. I tweaked the installation for him and it's going well. It can be very hard sometimes to know if some of the trouble is caused by him, or actual software malfunction. Did you know you can plug a USB cable into an RJ45 10/100 jack? Apparently it is possible and his printer was down for a while as a result. (he did it, not me)

The student brought the laptop in, I added some memory, codecs, themes and a few programs. Overall it made a huge difference in how she feels about things.

Both installs still going, I think both users missing Windows to this point. Interestingly though neither one has had any crashes or serious problems which couldn't be said for when they were running windows.

[Bush_Roo]

Did you know you can plug a USB cable into an RJ45 10/100 jack?

I heard once that if you poked a CD into a 5.25 floppy drive, you could play music...

[littlemog]

ipod nano works too, believe me, i've tried it.

[CaptainCabinet]

Good job spreading the goodness of Ubuntu. Everyone should be using it.

[jdrodrig]

I am some times skeptic of "evangelism" for any OS, but I came to realize that the more users out there the better hardware-vendor support would be.

Great job!

[SonicSteve]

I am some times skeptic of "evangelism" for any OS, but I came to realize that the more users out there the better hardware-vendor support would be.

Great job!

To be honest you can call it evangelism or whatever. Evangelism is what though? Spreading something you believe in that you know will benefit the other person. Evangelism has a bad name these days because of;
1. political correctness (which will one day be seen for the crock that it is), and also
2. people who wouldn't know how to properly evangelize if it bit them on the butt. thus giving whatever their cause is and evangelism a bad name.

So in regards to Ubuntu I suggested it to these users because I thought it would benefit both of them based on their needs. Neither one was locked into using windows because of programs they needed. Both of them had badly destroyed windows installations because of poor operating system management practices. Based on this I suggested it to them and they both agreed to give it a shot. The deal I made was that I would at any point replace it with windows if they just couldn't hack the change. I know that if they can both make the jump they will be better for it. That's my experienced perspective talking though, they simply have to trust and take my word for it. I doubt either of them will really ever understand the perspective I come from.