# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Ubuntu Women >  Moved my wife to Ubuntu!

## casperiv

So, after my wife complained for the 1,000th time about the XP machine she has crashing I decided to grab one of my 80GB drives off my shelf and replace her OS with Ubuntu.  The reaction was actually much better then I expected.... and I'll admit, I was looking to stir things up.  She looked at it for a minute, asked if she could load her word and powerpoint files for school, asked if she could browse the web, asked if she could IM, and asked if the games she wants to play will work.  Once told her yes to everything, all she wanted was shortcuts and off she went.  I'm shocked.  Of course she isn't going to handle coniguration issues, and I'll end up installing any new software... but I had to anyway, that's why she married a computer geek.  I am very interested in how well she can adapt to using this linux distro.

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## s_h_a_d_o_w_s

Thats very nice of you! I sure hope she likes ubuntu on the long run. What games did she want to play? flash games? I would reccomend getting her automatiix2 that was she could learn gradually to install programs.  :Smile:

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## Gaweph

Im gonna try this with my GirlFriend soon.  And my Father.  It think they could handle it..

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## meng

Command:
sudo mv wife* /ubuntu/

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## earobinson

> Command:
> sudo mv wife* /ubuntu/


takes more than a normal user to move your wife eh?

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## meng

Un/fortunately
sudo apt-get upgrade wife
doesn't work. I'm stuck with this version!

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## earobinson

you could always dl the source and compile one on your own?

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## Henry Rayker

> takes more than a normal user to move your wife eh?


OUCH!

I installed Dapper on my girlfriend's machine. She's dual booting (some of her classes require some Windows only software). She seems to really like it, though. Similar to the OP, I will be installing all the software and the like, as well as general maintenance, but I was doing that anyway.

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## earobinson

he wrote it i just read it. But then he should count him self lucky my gf wont give me sudo privileges. or even take commands.

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## amoore

you could always force install!!!

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## Felipe_U

> Un/fortunately
> sudo apt-get upgrade wife
> doesn't work. I'm stuck with this version!


This is a common problem when people forgets to sudo apt-get upgrade girfriend, wich is something that must be done often to avoid girlfriend turning into a wife. :Silenced:

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## Henry Rayker

A forced installation, even if you did do the initial installation, can get you in serious trouble with the cops.

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## justin whitaker

Casper, you are a hero. My wife hates Ubuntu, and Linux in general. I'm going to keep forcing the issue though.  :Brick wall:   :Mr. Green:

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## Henry Rayker

You shouldn't try to force it...ease her into it. It'll be a lot more pleasant for her...in fact, she may ask for it. (That's how I went about it and my girlfriend practically BEGGED me to give it to her).

Dual boot at first. It'll give her a security net. Let her know that she can back out at any time. Don't make her do all the work; sure, the most desirable result is your significant other being able to set up and maintain their own system, but at first, pamper her.

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## meng

> You shouldn't try to force it...ease her into it. It'll be a lot more pleasant for her...in fact, she may ask for it. (That's how I went about it and my girlfriend practically BEGGED me to give it to her).


Hey man keep it clean! We're talking about Linux here!  :Very Happy:

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## casperiv

I don't believe in dual booting.... waists space for my random junk  :Smile:   All I did was stick one of my 80gigs in with Ubuntu on it, stuck her old HD in as a slave so that I could make links to the picture folders and such on the desktop like she had before, installed Diablo II and stuff, and she likes it just fine.  She even mentioned she liked openoffice better then MS office because it didn't lockup when she used her pendrive.

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## Henry Rayker

> Hey man keep it clean! We're talking about Linux here!


I was talking about Linux... :Silenced:

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## meng

> I was talking about Linux...


Oh you were? Um, I thought you were talking about ...  :Embarassed:  ... hey it doesn't really matter what I thought you were talking about!

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## casperiv

> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				Originally Posted by Henry Rayker View Post
> I was talking about Linux...
> 			
> ...


Um yeah... my mind didn't jump to the gutter either...

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## nenyalorien

hmm. not that i wanna force the linux issue on my hubby anytime soon, but i think i can give him a copy of the live cd so he can take a look at it. honestly, i'm not going to completely move to linux anytime soon. i'll keep dual-booting for, like, forever (haha!), as my country is addicted to Windows like junkies to heroin. though some schools, like the school i used to go to, University of the Philippines, use linux system-wide. 

someday i would like a mac. someday i would like it if the applications for windows would be as feature-packed if installed on linux (take for example ym  :Razz: ) but for today, windows is the mainstream OS, and it seems like the world is kowtowing to microsoft. 

i haaaaate the bugs on windows. but i'm still way too unfamiliar with linux. i'm a download and install hound, but with what i read, one has to have another application to be able to install other applications. takes too much brain cells to do that. 

so for now, i'll take the dummy's way and go dual booting.  :Razz:

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## Zyphrexi

there's absolutely nothing wrong with dual-booting. you can be a linux zealot and run windows also. Plus when a problem occurs where you are unsure of how to fix it, you always have something to blame. [ windows killed grub, ate my /etc/network/interface, raised taxes, smashed my mailbox etc...]

I can do quite a bit in linux, and do mostly use it, however there are games that do not work on linux, and if you are a dedicated gamer like myself, windows can be a necessary evil. 99.9% of the time, linux apps are superior however, with the exception of open office. (slow as molasses)

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## casperiv

I have to keep XP around for development tasks in Visual Studio .NET, Dreamweaver, and such that just won't work in linux... or at least not well.

I am a gamer, but there are not many games out right now that I have to go back to Windows to play.  Most of the newer games are pretty lame, but I'm sure there will be some good ones coming out that I will have to use XP for.  I wish I could run them all in Linux, but I know that the more integrated the new games get with .NET and Vista, it will be much more difficult to make happen.

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## DoctorMO

> I have to keep XP around for development tasks in Visual Studio .NET, Dreamweaver, and such that just won't work in linux... or at least not well.


I'm suprised windows technoledgies work at all on Linux. I'd be worried if you said perl, python, php, java or apache with eclips ide was giving you jip.

At the end of the day if you believe in what GNU/Linux is about you'd try and move away from .Net and Dreamweaver (trust me I just had to move a site from Windows to Linux and it was horrible, they don't even edit the html files so it's a complete mess, and not css) and move towards technoledgies which promote openness.

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## Lem

My and the missus have a PC which we both use daily in the dining room. We listen to internet radio, catch up with friends via IM, watch movies - it's a true household appliance!

I changed this PC over to Ubuntu back in the Hoary/Breezy days and it was a little cranky but worked well. I eventually hosed it (through my lack of linux knowledge at the time) and had to stick xp back on to do my CAD work at home.

However, several months later, we have Edgy/Beryl on a replacement PC and the old one is now next door running mythtv (on Ubuntu). What's more the missus is now a full Ubuntu convert, saying that she couldn't go back to using windows, and actually dislikes using my work laptop because of this.

As for the dual-boot arguements.. I have VMWare player running all the XP apps we need quite happily - XP in a window is much more handy if you just need to pop in and quickly use a program. A samba shared folder makes moving data between these two simple enough.

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## Lin-X

> he wrote it i just read it. But then he should count him self lucky my gf wont give me sudo privileges. or even take commands.


Good for her! If my husband ever deleted or moved anything on my computer, he wouldn't live long enough to install anything else! If I were any of your wives or girlfriends, I delete you completely. What conceited, arrogant creeps!

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## casperiv

> Good for her! If my husband ever deleted or moved anything on my computer, he wouldn't live long enough to install anything else! If I were any of your wives or girlfriends, I delete you completely. What conceited, arrogant creeps!


Right... someone is a little angry.

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## meng

Wow we done really bad! No wonder it's difficult to attract women to Ubuntu!

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## DoctorMO

Well disrespecting someone because you think they're not inteligent enough to manage their own afairs... thats not good in any field even computing.

I'd look down on anyone who does that to anyone.

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## Zyphrexi

I agree with the gender argument, but I don't believe that was the address. Gender aside, any individual without the knowledge of a thing or the usefulness thereof cannot in all practicality make efficient use of a thing, subjectivity dependent.

However you are free to disagree with me. I am, after all, quite insane.

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## StanMeis

I recently replaced the old 486 my wife was using with a rebuild using parts from a P4 3gig Sony Vaio that the motherboard burnt out on.  Luckily the processor, memory and drives were not damaged but the OEM copy of XP would not recognize the Asrock board that I purchased at our local computer store.  I loaded a copy of Ubuntu the tech guy at work gave me and configured her mail, internet and am able to access the shared files folder on my networked XP box.

She's off and running with only a few questions and they're mostly due to being unfamiliar with the new desktop.  I'm doing double duty between the two computers learning Ubuntu with the goal of eventually dumping XP.

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## daynah

Have you asked her if she'd like to post here?  :Smile:

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## beameup

That's awesome. My wife is dual booting Ubuntu Dapper on her laptop, but I pretty much have to boot it up for her. Had to set XP as the default in GRUB.
Maybe one day she'll get a clue, but as for now  :Brick wall:   :Brick wall:   :Brick wall:

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## TheWizzard

my girl is very happy with ubuntu. especially because it runs smoother on our (pretty old) pc and because i cant't blame her when something goes wrong (virusses, spyware, etc). 
my father is using ubuntu too. i configured the box and he doesn't have to care about messing things up. makes life easy.

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## Shenphen

A couple of months ago, I transfered my mother to Ubuntu from Windows XP. She kept on getting infected with worms on Window through emails. At first she was a bit aprehensive, but she trusted me, and now she uses Linux better than she did Windows. The problems with worms are gone, and she can surf without worries. Mind you folks, she is 71 years old and not a geek. I am very proud of her.

I resently changed my SuSe Linux 10.1 to Ubuntu Edgy due to configuration problems in SuSe. Now everything works as it is supposed to. Ubuntu seems more user friendly even though SuSe is very good.

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