# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Ubuntu Women >  My wife

## dolson

Hello ladies.  :Smile: 

I just thought I'd contribute to your forum. I hope you don't mind. All I have is a short story for you. A true one, though.

My wife is a non-geeky type, almost computer illiterate. Hey, she has to have one flaw, right?  :Smile: 

So, back in 2001, we were in college. About a month before our wedding this took place.

We each had a PC, and they were on a single desk that we each sat on either side of, facing each other.

One day, a friend came over after school, and I was showing him Linux. She overheard me and after he had gone home, she asked me, "What is that Linux thing you guys were talking about?"

Back then I was using KDE because GNOME was unstable crap, and I was using Mandrake because I was still just beginning in my Linux journey.

I booted it up and she saw the cutesy penguin bootsplash thing and I logged in and showed her Galeon (yeah, I used Galeon on KDE, not sure why) and some games and stuff. She then asked me, "is my computer good enough to run Linux?"

(Could it be?!? Is this it... The big question?!?!!!)

I told her it should be, and she asked me, "can you put it on mine instead of Windows, sometime when you have a chance?"

(Holy crap! It IS the big question!!!!)

I jumped at that and did it right that minute. From that day on, she was a Linux user.  :Very Happy:  We got married, and lived happily ever after.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Once I was trying out Red Hat on her PC because I accidentally wiped her Mandrake out (hdparm -X## where ## is unsupported by your hardware!). When she saw it booting up, she said to me to "take off that gay stuff and put back Mandrake." lol.. I guess she didn't like the guy with the hat. Oh well. Now she uses Ubuntu - has no choice. I can't stand RPMs anymore. 8)

Okay, that was my story. Hope it was ok to post here. If not, trash the thread, I'm cool with that.

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## oldmanstan

honestly you have a good point, computers and sciences are still fields dominated by men so any opportunity to interest women in the field will help to narrow the gender gap and, ultimately, help break down the social pattern of women being reliant on men. i showed my completely non-nerdy girlfriend ubuntu and she loved the fact that she could customize it how she wanted it. this might seem trivial but it didn't take her long to learn how to use it since she had to learn something new every time she wanted to change something. ultimately she went back to windows because she is a teacher and she needs windows-only software (and wine is still a pain) but the point is that she learned a whole lot about how computers actually work which made her more able to troubleshoot problems on her windows machine in the future.

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## BinaryDigit

That is a very cute story  :Mr. Green:  I'm glad you have showed her the ways of Linux 8)

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## Super King

Very nice story  :Smile:

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## towsonu2003

> I booted it up and she saw the cutesy penguin bootsplash thing


that penguin is incredibly efficient to promote linux. My girlfriend made me do custom t-shirts with the girl tux (she prefers to call it the feminist tux though) on it: http://tux.crystalxp.net/index.php?pngid=462

I myself preferred the beaten up tux, red army tux, drugged up tux, and confused tux. Tux the penguin had a big role in my decision to try linux (such a cute logo on boot, it HAD to be good!).

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## RavenOfOdin

> I myself preferred the beaten up tux, red army tux, drugged up tux, and confused tux. Tux the penguin had a big role in my decision to try linux (such a cute logo on boot, it HAD to be good!).


Why am I somehow not surprised?  :Very Happy:

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## tsrjzq

very nice story, expect linux(or ubuntu) will attract more and more women, for example, the xgl, most girls will love it very much, I think.

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## Titus A Duxass

My wife has been pure linux (first SuSE & now Kubuntu) for over three years, she even mastered my MythTV setup in less than two hours. Pretty good for a 51 year old with no pooter experience.

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## Rinzwind

> that penguin is incredibly efficient to promote linux. My girlfriend made me do custom t-shirts with the girl tux (she prefers to call it the feminist tux though) on it: http://tux.crystalxp.net/index.php?pngid=462
> 
> I myself preferred the beaten up tux, red army tux, drugged up tux, and confused tux. Tux the penguin had a big role in my decision to try linux (such a cute logo on boot, it HAD to be good!).


A Queen Amidala Tux T-shirt would be soooooo COOL  :Very Happy:

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## detyabozhye

I like your story, kinda cute and funny.  :Wink:

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## Trocisp

rofl, I've tried getting girls to use linux, I got slapped when I told one that I'd like to show her Ubuntu, then I explained it and she was really sorry.   It took 20 minutes to explain why she slapped me in the middle of study hall, haha.

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## MetalMusicAddict

Nice. I forced my wife to use it.  :Smile:  She really had no specific need for windows so I switched her laptop. Hasnt been much of a problem so far.  :Wink:

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## giaguara

Nice story.

And still happily together with the happily ever after and many distros .. good.  :Smile:

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## Sitix

> rofl, I've tried getting girls to use linux, I got slapped when I told one that I'd like to show her Ubuntu, then I explained it and she was really sorry.   It took 20 minutes to explain why she slapped me in the middle of study hall, haha.


Haha  :Capital Razz:  I have to say, it sounds a bit odd... "I'd like to show you ubuntu"  :Capital Razz:  ("You filthy ... !!")

I gave a girl an Ubuntu live cd, because her Windows system has to boot for 20 minutes. I've been looking, checking, scanning... couldn't find anything that could be the cause. Although with Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D together it were almost 2000 threats...  :Capital Razz: 

I should've fixed it with my signature text though... but I thought I'd get slapped too, so I didn't  :Capital Razz:

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## changlinn

My wife was using openoffice, firefox, thunderbird and gaim on windows... I said to her really you should just switch to linux what other programs do you use/need. Everyone had a equivellent (most better) program.
The only games she plays all work native on linux too.
She was also having problems with windows crashing inexplicabily.

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## fer5437

Actually this is my first time looking in Ubuntu Women forum. Great it actually fun with this type of story. One word to can I said "NICE"

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## M@dMerC

hahaha great story i just told it to my girlfriend in the hopes that i could nuke her windows installation but alas she just looked at me after the story was over and said "your not putting linux on here"

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## newlinux

I just installed Ubuntu (dual boot w/XP) on our main home computer. I'm trying to encourage my wife to use it more. I actually think she'll benefit from it more than I will (cause she is more interested in various type of software, and we don't buy software that often). She used Unix in college, but has been Using windows steadily ever since. I'm trying to sell her on GIMP first (she is a scrapbooker and like editing photos). We don't have Photoshop. She also likes software that catalogs and organizes image files (she currently uses Picasa, which I think can run through Wine). Any other software anybody can suggest, preferably that doesn't need Wine?

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## kigina

Thats how I got my wife to want Linux.  The cute penguin!

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## atrus123

Yup, my wife is using Linux as well.

She's currently running Ubuntu Breezy, but I suspect I'll be upgrading her to Dapper fairly soon.

I actually put a Windows partition on her laptop too (just to ease her initial trepidation), but she hasn't booted into it once.  When I upgrade to Dapper, the Windows partition is going bye-bye.

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## Biltong (Dee)

> When I upgrade to Dapper, the Windows partition is going bye-bye.


....shortly followed by you, I would think. :Mr. Green:  

Keep the dual boot and introduce her to games and Abiword.

Softly-softly is the best way.

Don't act like Tarzan on a bad hair day.

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