Trying to switch mom to ubuntu

[user1397]

My mom's got an old desktop with XP on it. She has microsoft office installed, although she really only uses Word. She does basic web browsing, occasional msn chatting, skype video calling, word processing, and spider solitaire.

Is ubuntu going to be good enough for her?

The main issue would be the word processing, as she is a professional translator, and sometimes files are sent to her in the .docx office 2007 format and I know there are formatting issues with that when opened in OO.

[weasel fierce]

To be honest, I find openoffice to be more compatible with office formats than office is. Once you deal with people who dont always use the latest version of windows, its all a guessing game.

For the rest, I dont use video chat in skype so no idea how well that works, but everything else will work fine.

[jfreak_]

MSOffice works perfectly with WINE, I use it regularly.

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

Skype has worked well for me with video chat. It was the only program that I could get to work between my Ubuntu machine and my Wife's mac a couple of years ago. I'm sure things have improved since then, but Skype has always been good for me anyway.

[khelben1979]

With Wine 1.3.5 you are able to install Office 2007. WineHQ - Office 2007 installer (http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=4992).

As from what I have read from WineHQ, it's able to install but apparantely the software can crash and it's got bugs according to Maarten Bos.

So it seems to me that she can expect problems and I don't think it's worth it if she really needs office 2007.

[Whiteice]

On my old laptop my mom would use it for basic surfing around the house and even my father wold use it. They were able to do everything they wanted and they acutally like it more than windows. And its good for me because I dont have to worry about them stumbling onto spyware. Win for me

[ukripper]

I use Office 2007 under wine without any problem and i prefer that suite to be honest.

[ugm6hr]

Is ubuntu going to be good enough for her?

Almost certainly....
But does she have a problem with XP? No point in solving a problem that doesn't exist.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Almost certainly....
But does she have a problem with XP? No point in solving a problem that doesn't exist.

+ 1

If she is not having problems with XP; such as, virus, trojan, etc., then why fix a non-existent problem?

[weasel fierce]

+ 1

If she is not having problems with XP; such as, virus, trojan, etc., then why fix a non-existent problem?

there's a point to that, however:
XP will not get any safer at this point. There's a value to something thats upgraded and receives consistent security fixes.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

there's a point to that, however:
XP will not get any safer at this point. There's a value to something thats upgraded and receives consistent security fixes.

Maybe I have been out of touch with Microsoft Windows for to long; however, I thought XP would still get patches until April 2014. :confused:

[weasel fierce]

Maybe I have been out of touch with Microsoft Windows for to long; however, I thought XP would still get patches until April 2014. :confused:

ah, you are right.

[Paqman]

Has she actually agreed to switching her OS though? A lot of people are understandably resistant to change that they have no control over.

[beew]

OpenOffice opens docx just fine. For a translator I doubt that she would get documents with weird embedded media or strange formatting.

If her main thing is word processing and all you can offer is that she can run an outdated and probably crippled copy of MSO in WINE in Ubuntu why would she switch to Ubuntu instead of running the latest MSO in its native platform? If I were she I won't.

WINE should be the last resort. If someone has decided to use Linux at least he/she should give Linux software a chance instead of going to WINE at the drop of the hat. If all you want are Windows programs then you should use Windows, Linux is not the cheapo's version of Windows.

[Dex73]

Just wanted to chime in and mention dual booting if there is enough memory. She could try out Ubuntu at full speed and really get used to it while still having a safety net, in case the worst should happen.

[burdebc]

The only issue would be skype. I don't know of any Ubuntu equivalent for that.

[weasel fierce]

The only issue would be skype. I don't know of any Ubuntu equivalent for that.

There's a skype linux client.

[jrusso2]

MSOffice works perfectly with WINE, I use it regularly.

If by perfect you mean it keeps asking for your registration number each time you run it then yes it runs perfect.

[NightwishFan]

Add the partner repository and Skype is in the software center.

[drawkcab]

Yeah, if there's no problem then don't fix it.

I love open office but I don't use it for professional production. With .docx it sometimes screws up my footnotes so badly that I want to gouge my eyes out.

Maybe you can dual boot and let her trial it for a few months. If she does any online banking or shopping you can explain that working out of the linux partition is safer.