Ubuntu and parents?

[Hambo]

Hey all.

My dad wants to get into computers and the like, and I was wondering, has anyone here installed Ubuntu for their parents, or just someone pretty much computer illiterate? How did they cope with it?

The last computer my dad had was a comodore 64, bear in mind. Do you think he'll find it easier to adapt to then Windows?

Thanks for reading.

[oly]

I installed ubuntu for my parents it worked out much better than XP, the reason i installed it for them was because they where getting hounded by viruses and adaware and various other problem.

since installing ubuntu i have not had to touch the computer, with the exception of the odd phone call asking how todo something or what application to install those sort of questions.

[barbarian]

I'm gonna try to install Xubuntu on parents 500Mhz Duron with 192 ram.. But I'm doubting cause XFCE 4.4 still beta.. Perhaps I'll give a try Kubuntu first..

[BoyOfDestiny]

Hey all.

My dad wants to get into computers and the like, and I was wondering, has anyone here installed Ubuntu for their parents, or just someone pretty much computer illiterate? How did they cope with it?

The last computer my dad had was a comodore 64, bear in mind. Do you think he'll find it easier to adapt to then Windows?

Thanks for reading.

Fire up a c64 emu for ubuntu.

http://www.viceteam.org/

Anyway, on a more serious note, he may better off not having encountered windows. Nothing to really re-learn, no bad habits to break. Just set up a box, maybe do the main set up (put flash, codecs, etc), show Add/Remove, introduce "advanced" (which goes to synaptic). Firefox for the web... Bookmark these forums, let him have fun with it.

[nalmeth]

Anyway, on a more serious note, he may better off not having encountered windows. Nothing to really re-learn, no bad habits to break. Just set up a box, maybe do the main set up (put flash, codecs, etc), show Add/Remove, introduce "advanced" (which goes to synaptic). Firefox for the web... Bookmark these forums, let him have fun with it.
Exactly.

A lot of times, people can't get into linux, because they have such hard pressed instincts from Windows, and really can't adapt to something new.

A milder computer user might adapt more easily, as long as you get everything ready for him.

What kind of PC do you have? Specs?

[Bloch]

For the first few months Linux will be to blame for everything -
the printer runs out of ink? -- it never used that quickly under windows
can't read a scratched cd? -- must be this new linux stuff

The only major disappointment in ubuntu (for my non-IT friend that is) is that he cannot watch some video streams that he used to watch every day. They are in smil format. I showed him how to save the link on the desktop, but even then Real Player gives video but no sound. The fix I discovered was to kill esd before beginning, but we are already into geek territory.

With the mplayer plugin sometimes failing (silently) to read a stream and with no flash 8, ubuntu may dissappoint those used to browsing for video streams. 90% of them work however.

The other major problem is the non-proprietary formats. However I think every Linux user, no matter how IT-deficient, should know the meaning of open source, proprietary formats and the "ubuntu philosophy" so they can understand why the default sound file is ogg and why OpenOffice is only 99% compatible with MS Office.

[Kvark]

Almost all people have years of Windows experience and no Ubuntu experience. That is why Windows is easier for almost all people. But this is an interesting case, no experience of either. I think they will have less trouble with Ubuntu then with Windows.

On the security side they don't need to know about firewalls, anivirus looking for security updates and all that stuff to stay safe. They only need to not download programs from strange places. But if they set up a server such as samba for them then the server needs to be configured correctly so perhaps you should take care of the server stuff.

When it comes to system maintenance. The only manual maintenance Ubuntu needs to keep running as it should is regular backups.

On the breakage side it's easier to break Windows then Ubuntu from my experience. Nothing they normally have permission to do on Ubuntu can break the whole system. Tell them to think twice before doing admin stuff that asks for their password. On the other hand they won't know how to troubleshoot, read logs, edit config files from the command line and so on if something does break but I doubt they could troubleshoot Windows problems either.

On finding and installing software. It's a lot easier to learn how to use Synaptic then how to search the web or p2p programs for virus free software. And they don't need to mess with Wizards who want magical CD Keys, reboots and stuff. On the other hand about half of the programs one installs on Ubuntu doesn't appear in the menu so they must learn how to edit the menu and panels manually.

[Johnsie]

Best thing to do is pre-configure everything for him and make sure the deskop looks nice and it's easy to work out what the icons do. I installed Ubuntu on my family computer and made sure everything was better than windows but also easy to use. Tooltips and good descriptions in launcher names are a good way to go and having a nice background is good too.


Xubuntu is really good on old hardware, I'm, usinhg that on one of my servers and I was surprised at how much I can do with my old hardware. The good thing about Xubuntu is that it's Also quite simple to use. The only downfall with Xubunu that I found was that it's hard to do stuff with the desktop items out of the box.

My family computer is dual booting Windows and Ubuntu but I was sneaky and put ubuntu at the top of the boot list with a timer :-)
That way they pretty much HAD to get used to Linux and now they barely go into MS.

Windows can be a scary experience for people new to computers because of all the spyware and virii. If you go to Download.com you'll see that the most downloaded programs are security programs. Linux is immuned to most spyware so he'll have to worry less about stuff like that. Then again, I'm a hardcore Ubuntu advocate so I'm always gonna be a little biased :-)

[Johnsie]

Oh and it's always good to point new people in the right direction for technical support. I find these forums and the #Ubuntu in Xchat (or any other irc chat client) are the best places to get support so make sure he knows where to get help.

[danpre]

I have installed kubuntu on two computers for my parents (thay have some computer skills and thay were using computers before) and one computer with kubuntu for my father in low.

For my father in low this was first contact with computer ever, he is over 65 years old and he love it: www (he is no watching tv news anymore - prefers to read news on internet), email and family pictures browsing. Because of his very low needs for computer speed he is using old noname computer with 500mhz processor and 256mb of ram - enough even for kde, firefox, thunderbird, gwenview.

So - concluding - yes, ubuntu is very good, because you just install it and don't have to worry about safety (viruses, troyans), licenses and younger cousins tring to install stupid windows games.

danpre

[crypto178]

Yes, my parent's computer is running ubuntu (and only ubuntu) since last year (breezy release). They're totally computer illiterate, and entirely satisfied by ubuntu. Of course, I had to set up everything for them, but it's not like they can do any better with Windows (they never installed a program).
Their typical tasks involve surfing the web (with multimedia plugins), e-mail, home banking (bank software running through Wine, a linux version is provided but it's not very good), openoffice tasks (especially calc), photo management (f-spot), and some music listening and cd burning.
My father especially likes the quality of the mplayer plug-in, and the gdesklets featuring the latest news (RSS feeds from BBC news and a belgian newspaper).
He also likes the regular security updates, they give him a feeling of safety. He found openoffice was too slow to open though, but I fixed that by disabling the java option. My mother likes f-spot (classifying, tagging, etc.) and stellarium.

[OrganicPanda]

the ONLY thing stopping me forcing linux upon my parents is the fact that their stupid 'photo-printer's' drivers are, how can i put it, **** on linux because it was obviously designed for windows users and uses its proprietry software to do the advanced things (borderless print, cd/dvd print etc...) which the linux version cannot do, ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

[kassetra]

the ONLY thing stopping me forcing linux upon my parents is the fact that their stupid 'photo-printer's' drivers are, how can i put it, **** on linux because it was obviously designed for windows users and uses its proprietry software to do the advanced things (borderless print, cd/dvd print etc...) which the linux version cannot do, ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

Well.... I don't know the exact model and if it's supported... but many of those types of printers have special extra drivers you can purchase for linux... that allow borderless printing and such...

Turboprint (http://www.turboprint.de/english.html) is one such company that offers paid-drivers for higher-end printing.

[bruce89]

...why the default sound file is ogg...
Sorry about pointing this out, but it really annoys me. The Xiph.org sound format is Vorbis, the container format is ogg. It'd be like saying avi, when you mean XviD.

[OrganicPanda]

Well.... I don't know the exact model and if it's supported... but many of those types of printers have special extra drivers you can purchase for linux... that allow borderless printing and such...

Turboprint (http://www.turboprint.de/english.html) is one such company that offers paid-drivers for higher-end printing.

thats a good point ...

but they already paid a whole heap for the printer, paper and inks, now for me to tell them it would cost for them to print... well i think i foresee the answer and resulting reinstall of windows

[TeeAhr1]

I installed Ubuntu for my mom, whom I do not live with (I should get over there and upgrade that machine, now that I think about it). It's been several months, and the transition has gone very well. Of course, the needs of that house are pretty simple, so it was an easy setup, a forty-five minute "training course," and I'm out the door, enjoy your new computer!

Things I'm really glad I did:
1. Take the box away, install, set up, and configure everything. Bring it back fresh and new and ready. Big happy icons in convienient places, covering everything that's going to be done on this machine: Here's the internet, here's your word processor, here's your music player, here's everything, right on the taskbar with 36-point icons, labeled. Click here to go.
2. (May not apply to you) Start 'em with some windows clones. If it looks like stuff you already know, it's gonna be easier. Yes, OpenOffice is a pig, but it's a pretty easy learning curve if you're coming from MS Office. Maybe in a few months we'll look at AbiWord. Yeah, XMMS is totally over-simplistic for my tastes, but it looks and acts exactly like Winamp, and you don't have to set a damn thing up.
3. Make folders on the desktop for saving stuff in. Call them something like this: Documents, Music, Video, Other. Make them visible, accessable, and put bookmarks to them in Nautilus, so no matter where you are, when you pull up a save dialogue, there they are. I never want a call at midnight saying "I saved it, but now I can't find it!"

My two coppers. Have fun with it!

[Hambo]

Yeah, it makes sense. I'll just do a dummy proof setup for him as some of you have been saying. The alternative is to get him a mac; it seems to me that people with no experience have an easy time getting used to the Mac interface. And it'll be a whole heap cheaper than buying a Mac...

The machine I have for him is an Athalon 1250mhz, 256MB ram, geforce-mx440. More then sufficient for internet browsing, photos, music etc.

[slimdog360]

depends what he wants to use it for. When I did it for my dad he wanted to use photoshop and all of those sorts of programs, specifically those sorts of programs, so it was easier for him to have xp.
Though with my mum she uses it for work (shes a teacher) and uni stuff, so she mainly uses office programs etc. She had rented a laptop with xp preinstalled so I cant touch it due to the licencing problems. So far she has had virus after spyware after crash after problem. The rental agreement is almost up and I am going to try and convince her to either get a mac (just for the simplicity) or if she gets a pc im going to install ubuntu on it.
Ive personally noticed that once Ubuntu is properly setup it does not need to be touched again which makes it very simple for all involved.

[jimcooncat]

For a friends' family, I took an old Compaq, added RAM, and put Breezy Xubuntu-desktop on it. I did quite a bit of tweaking to the menu, installed flash and java, put Epiphany as the default browser, and added all the games I could, including a bunch of flash games on the small HD.

Most of the large family there hadn't used computers before, and with very little prompting was able to run the games, web browse, and chat with Gaim. Success! The younger members of the family had some exposure to Windows, and were able to adapt.

Most of the older friends who visit and use the computer, to check their email and whatever, get frustrated because things aren't as they're used to in Windows. Oh well, I didn't design the environment for them -- no big blue E there. They keep asking if they can install their favorite fun programs so everyone can enjoy them, but I have to say no. That is probably the biggest letdown encountered with this setup.

To keep things running smoothly, I installed OpenSSH, and have a cron script update thier IP address to a domain name I registered. Actually a third-level domain name, I use the domain for all sorts of things I run. So I can pop in and apt-get update when I need to, and I usually do it every couple of days. So I pay for a domain name, but maybe there is a free beer workaround for that as well.

I used to help other friends with their Windows computers, keeping them updated and other little maintenance. I've retired from that, I just do not have time to support Windows anymore!

[ozak]

my parents use my other box for thier computer. it runs ubuntu and i've got it set up so that they've got easy access to just about anything they need (internet, games, etc).
And if they have a problem, I'm just an ssh login away. :P

[graabein]

My mom's pretty cool with it. She only needs to know how to get her card games like solitaire, how to play music and how to get on the internet. She's used Ubuntu for nearly a year I think with no problems. I installed it on my old and busted box. Can't remember the specs but it's pretty lousy but does its intended job playing music and basic surfing.

My dad never leaves the telly in the living room so he's got his work laptop there with Windows XP and whatever. He sometimes asks for help but I'm not very familiar with XP but I usually figure it out. Ubuntu Linux is much easier for me now!

I sometimes try to get my sisters to use my old computer so they'll see how nice Linux and Ubuntu really is...

[joe_lace]

My mom and her husband use ME. I tried to convince them that the OS is crap and it is time to upgrade but they won't admit it. If they bought a new computer they would probably install ME on it ](*,)

[dmazzone]

I go to Rutgers University which is about 45 minutes from my house. My mom is almost completely computer illiterate. I've had her on my old Ubuntu box and she had no problems (well no more than any other time she's used a computer).So over winter break I'm going to setup permanently with a 2.2ghz celeron with 512gb ram and 32mb nvidia graphics card. I not sure what DE to give her, I personally use gnome. I've KDE is similar to windows but I don't have much experience with it, also I'm considering XFCE for its low sys reqs. Any thoughts?

p.s. I'd like to be able to ssh in and do maintenance type things from school, we have verizon dsl which I hear blocks port 80. Does anyone have any experience getting around that?

[Game_boy]

I installed Ubuntu on my parents' laptop (despite their protest), and they remarked that it took 10% of the time to "get Firefox* up" but they made me change the GRUB default to XP because they "might want to use iTunes" and then they forget/ignore the bootup sequence so they always let XP get automatically chosen.

So, a failure even though they claim to prefer Ubuntu.

*Also under protest

[Game_boy]

I go to Rutgers University which is about 45 minutes from my house. My mom is almost completely computer illiterate. I've had her on my old Ubuntu box and she had no problems (well no more than any other time she's used a computer).So over winter break I'm going to setup permanently with a 2.2ghz celeron with 512gb ram and 32mb nvidia graphics card. I not sure what DE to give her, I personally use gnome. I've KDE is similar to windows but I don't have much experience with it, also I'm considering XFCE for its low sys reqs. Any thoughts?

p.s. I'd like to be able to ssh in and do maintenance type things from school, we have verizon dsl which I hear blocks port 80. Does anyone have any experience getting around that?

GNOME is good enough with 512MB RAM in my opinion. Xfce will need more configuration than the average user can stand (unless you do it).

As for port 80, isn't there a port changing option in whatever program(s) you use?

[dmazzone]

GNOME is good enough with 512MB RAM in my opinion. Xfce will need more configuration than the average user can stand (unless you do it).

As for port 80, isn't there a port changing option in whatever program(s) you use?

If I went with XFCE I would definitely setup everything myself (for GNOME as well).

And yeah you can specify the port, but I'm forced to be behind a verizon router so I haven't found a way to setup port forwarding. That's my biggest problem.

[Blutack]

Ssh runs over port 22.
I personally use dyndns for computers I need to ssh into.

[el_ricardo]

all the computers in our household, bar mine, are windows based, all my sister uses her laptop for is msn/web browsing/school essays, and despite this she just doesn't get the point of linux/ubuntu. Sure, if my laptop is in the lounge and she needs to check emails or something, then she has no problem opening firefox and doing that, so i really don't understand her adversity to it! My dad uses his PC to do his staff's wages, which involves lots of excel number crunching, and a program called sage payroll. I've no doubt what he does in excel could be done in openoffice, and i'm pretty sure i've seen a program in synaptics that does a similar job, but at the end of the day he's got all his staff's records in the sage format, so linux is a no-go for him really, he also ridicules me endlessly for using ubuntu lol. My mum is the only member of our household who i think could actually like linux, she's completely computer illiterate, and she somehow always manages to crash windows XP when doing the simplest of things! She's uses my PC occasionally for emails, research etc, and always points out "OMG ITS NOT CRASHING ON ME!!!". I think one of these new fangled gos desktops would be right up her street, infact i'm really tempted to install something like that on her laptop lol!

My flatmate at uni has had a lot of success with ubuntu with his family, he has the ppc version on an old mac that his brother uses, and ubuntu on his parents PCs, and apparantly they all love it! his little brother apparantly loves compiz and spends hours writing stuff on the screen in fire lol

[dmazzone]

DynDNS is really cool, now I just need to get access to settings on my verizon router and setup port forwarding.

[macogw]

My mom had minimal Windows experience which involved asking for help doing um....everything. I gave her Ubuntu and she asked "where's Mozilla?" and I pointed to Firefox. She asked where to type things, and I told her to look in the Applications menu and with a bit of logic, she'll find it, and she figured out that Word Processor was what she needed. A month later (during which I wasn't there to give her any help at all) she was telling her friend how much easier and faster Linux is than Windows, and now she even figured out how to use OOo Calc to do her expense reports.

[K.Mandla]

My mom's been using Ubuntu since Breezy and won't go back to Windows.

My dad, on the other hand, thinks he should be using an OS if he paid for it. The logic escapes me. :???:

[hanzomon4]

Hey all.

My dad wants to get into computers and the like, and I was wondering, has anyone here installed Ubuntu for their parents, or just someone pretty much computer illiterate? How did they cope with it?

The last computer my dad had was a comodore 64, bear in mind. Do you think he'll find it easier to adapt to then Windows?

Thanks for reading.

My family all uses the same computer and it runs only Ubuntu. My Mom 47 and little brother 12 all do just fine with ubuntu. It all depends on how you set it up.