ubuntu punishment

[dbbolton]

before i left for school this morning, i commenced a burn of a sabayon 3.2 mini cd, but i had to leave before it finished; thus the disc was left in the drive. by the way, those things never work.

my brother, who doesn't really use linux, couldn't figure out why the typical grub menu wasn't loading. apparently isolinux on the sabayon cd was causing a blue cd of death! fortunately, he eventually figured it out.

a quote from my mum, to my brother (on whose desktop i recently installed ubuntu, using a very minimal partition) :


tell daniel that if i can't get to windows in three clicks, the computer and internet are gone.

(of course, you can get to windows from ubuntu with 2 clicks and a couple keystrokes on the grub menu. actually, if they just want files that are on windows, i have the main partition mounted on ubuntu.)

gee, it's nice to know that microsoft has such loyal allies. as pricey said, some things justaren't meant to be.

[earobinson]

before i left for school this morning, i commenced a burn of a sabayon 3.2 mini cd, but i had to leave before it finished; thus the disc was left in the drive. by the way, those things never work.

my brother, who doesn't really use linux, couldn't figure out why the typical grub menu wasn't loading. apparently isolinux on the sabayon cd was causing a blue cd of death! fortunately, he eventually figured it out.

a quote from my mum, to my brother (on whose desktop i recently installed ubuntu, using a very minimal partition) :



(of course, you can get to windows from ubuntu with 2 clicks and a couple keystrokes on the grub menu. actually, if they just want files that are on windows, i have the main partition mounted on ubuntu.)

gee, it's nice to know that microsoft has such loyal allies. as pricey said, some things justaren't meant to be.
People want to use what they are used to and It is perfectly understandable that your mom would want to stick with windows.

That said its great that u use ubuntu

[Lord Illidan]

People want to use what they are used to and It is perfectly understandable that your mom would want to stick with windows.

That said its great that u use ubuntu

Let's face it, your mother prolly doesn't care about the ethical issues of Microsoft or the advantages of Ubuntu. She just wants something to work with, quickly...so that's why she is using Windows.

That said, our aim is not world domination.

[~LoKe]

Set grub to auto boot Windows.

[Brunellus]

before i left for school this morning, i commenced a burn of a sabayon 3.2 mini cd, but i had to leave before it finished; thus the disc was left in the drive. by the way, those things never work.

my brother, who doesn't really use linux, couldn't figure out why the typical grub menu wasn't loading. apparently isolinux on the sabayon cd was causing a blue cd of death! fortunately, he eventually figured it out.

a quote from my mum, to my brother (on whose desktop i recently installed ubuntu, using a very minimal partition) :



(of course, you can get to windows from ubuntu with 2 clicks and a couple keystrokes on the grub menu. actually, if they just want files that are on windows, i have the main partition mounted on ubuntu.)

gee, it's nice to know that microsoft has such loyal allies. as pricey said, some things justaren't meant to be.
You CANNOT go on installing things willy-nilly on computers that aren't yours.

As family sysadmin, you have great power AND great responsibility. That means that you should NOT be experimenting on machines that other users need access to. Those machines need to be "stable," and indeed, darn near unbreakable.

"running Linux" on your own workstation is one thing. Keeping users happy and productive is another. If that means supporting Windows--even if minimally--you have to be prepared to do it, especially if those users happen to be the ones who control the household IT budget.

Bug Number 1 is NOT to blame for the rage that arises out of irresponsible system administration.

[Lord Illidan]

Set grub to auto boot Windows.

That and also consider setting up your BIOS to boot from CD only when you want to try out a live cd, not as a default setting, so if you leave a CD in the drive, nothing will go wrong. I've had this problem with my folks before, and they couldn't figure it out.

I've also installed Linux at school and ended up with a semi large grub screen. Once a guy went to work on my pc (I was not on it at the moment), and when he booted and saw all that text, his face blanched, and he said "This has got a virus!!"...gah..

[weatherman]

I think he just left the sabayon cd in there, so maybe windows was already default in grub but the computer mounted the cd first.

On the other hand: let's face it, dealing with moms and computers can get quite frustrating :mrgreen:

[Hex_Mandos]

My mom loves Ubuntu. She didn't have to re-learn anything. Which would mean that she didn't learn anything in the last 20 years... Still, she'd probably check the CD drives. Her first computer had no HD, so she booted DOS from a floppy. LiveCDs are great nostalgia fun.:D

[dbbolton]

You CANNOT go on installing things willy-nilly on computers that aren't yours.

As family sysadmin, you have great power AND great responsibility. That means that you should NOT be experimenting on machines that other users need access to. Those machines need to be "stable," and indeed, darn near unbreakable.

"running Linux" on your own workstation is one thing. Keeping users happy and productive is another. If that means supporting Windows--even if minimally--you have to be prepared to do it, especially if those users happen to be the ones who control the household IT budget.

Bug Number 1 is NOT to blame for the rage that arises out of irresponsible system administration.
on the contrary, it is just as much mine as it is theirs.


my mum uses it once a day for 10 minutes to check her email. 99% of the time, that desktop is considered "my brothers." he actually wanted me to install ubuntu on it.

i never force my mum to use linux. whenever she wants on windows, my brother or i boot windows.

getting rid of the computer is not a reasonable reaction (ever hear of cutting one's nose off to spite the face?). a reasonable reaction would be, get rid of linux.

[Brunellus]

I think he just left the sabayon cd in there, so maybe windows was already default in grub but the computer mounted the cd first.

On the other hand: let's face it, dealing with moms and computers can get quite frustrating :mrgreen:
Doesn't invalidate my point.

If you share a computer--and you have root/sudo on that computer--you have a responsibility to the other users.

[dbbolton]

Set grub to auto boot Windows.
now that is a solution i can live with !

[Brunellus]

on the contrary, it is just as much mine as it is theirs.


my mum uses it once a day for 10 minutes to check her email. 99% of the time, that desktop is considered "my brothers." he actually wanted me to install ubuntu on it.

i never force my mum to use linux. whenever she wants on windows, my brother or i boot windows.

getting rid of the computer is not a reasonable reaction (ever hear of cutting one's nose off to spite the face?). a reasonable reaction would be, get rid of linux.
You aren't in a position to judge reasonableness. You don't control the budget.

You don't have exclusive use of the computer, which means it really isn't as much "yours" as you think it might be.

If you have a development/testing box which you control, then there's no harm in doing whatever you like. But the minute you have other users--especially blinking-twelve types--sharing your machine, you are responsible for them.

[yabbadabbadont]

One of the reasons I only have Linux installed on my computer is so that I can blow off people asking for free support for windows from me. "You know, it's been years since I used windows... I don't know how it works in your version. Sorry." ;)

[dbbolton]

You aren't in a position to judge reasonableness. You don't control the budget.

You don't have exclusive use of the computer, which means it really isn't as much "yours" as you think it might be.

If you have a development/testing box which you control, then there's no harm in doing whatever you like. But the minute you have other users--especially blinking-twelve types--sharing your machine, you are responsible for them.
actually, when it comes to my family, i'm in a better position to make judgements than anyone outside that nucleus.

i didn't technically change anything on that machine; i supplemented what was already there. the windows partition takes up 85% of the hard drive, and i did not so much as delete one file from it that i didnt create. so it's not like i limited the windows users or hurt them by installing another os.

[dbbolton]

One of the reasons I only have Linux installed on my computer is so that I can blow off people asking for free support for windows from me. "You know, it's been years since I used windows... I don't know how it works in your version. Sorry." ;)
or if somebody wants to bum your computer, just say that it doesn't have windows, and 9 times out of 10 they'll look elsewhere.

not that sharing is bad. well, it kind of is.

[Lord Illidan]

You aren't in a position to judge reasonableness. You don't control the budget.

You don't have exclusive use of the computer, which means it really isn't as much "yours" as you think it might be.

If you have a development/testing box which you control, then there's no harm in doing whatever you like. But the minute you have other users--especially blinking-twelve types--sharing your machine, you are responsible for them.

Brunellus, it is his family. Let him be responsible for them.

I am in the same boat...which is why I stopped testing other distros than Ubuntu. I created an account for my sisters...now I need to convince dad.

[dbbolton]

Brunellus, it is his family. Let him be responsible for them.

I am in the same boat...which is why I stopped testing other distros than Ubuntu. I created an account for my sisters...now I need to convince dad.
if i erased the hard drive, gave my brother a gentoo cd, and told him to have fun, i could understand anger to the point of getting rid of the computer.

[viciouslime]

Slightly off-topic, but I couldn't help notice that your location says US, yet you spell mum correctly (the English way :p)... why's that?

[meng]

Well if she followed through on her threat, then she still wouldn't have Windows, would she? In all seriousness though, good judgment is knowing when to choose the path of least resistance.

[Brunellus]

if i erased the hard drive, gave my brother a gentoo cd, and told him to have fun, i could understand anger to the point of getting rid of the computer.
Was your mother's reaction irrational and disproportionate? I think it was. Does she care? I don't think so, no. Irrational and disproportionate responses are what you'll get if someone is confronted suddenly with an apparently "unsolvable" problem.

It's no good laughing at clueless, blinking-twelve users who threaten to rip out the computer when they can't get their Windows. It's a credible threat--they can simply not have computer or network access, period, and not be affected.

It's been my personal experience that the best course of action is simply to prevent this sort of confrontation. Carelessness will (as you have seen) spark riots.

[yabbadabbadont]

or if somebody wants to bum your computer, just say that it doesn't have windows, and 9 times out of 10 they'll look elsewhere.

not that sharing is bad. well, it kind of is.

Just like my toothbrush... I don't share my computer. ;)

[Lord Illidan]

Just like my toothbrush... I don't share my computer. ;)

Lucky..I have to share with 2 younger sisters, and occasionally my dad.

[dbbolton]

Slightly off-topic, but I couldn't help notice that your location says US, yet you spell mum correctly (the English way :p)... why's that?
slightly off-topic from the off-topic post:

are you the viciouslime? eg, the creator of the viciousorange gtk theme? because that happens to be my all-time favourite.

but, i think "american" english is a joke. some rebels crossed the pond, started a new country on land they didn't own, and got lazy with the language they took from the motherland until it turned into the ignominy before us today.

plus, i deal a good bit with the french language, and many of the cognates are spelled in "british" (or 'true') english (or as i prefer, simply 'english'): centre, metre, organisation, foetus, and the like.

[dbbolton]

Lucky..I have to share with 2 younger sisters, and occasionally my dad.
i had to share that desktop for a good many years.

and it happens to be manufactured by hewlett-packard.

it's quite prodigious that it exists today.

[dbbolton]

you know what else sparks riots ?

posting silly, tongue-in-cheek anecdotes in the cafe, ostensibly. in all honesty, the reaction to my initial post makes me think that it belongs in the backyard.


but the content of that post does not induce such thoughts.

[Brunellus]

slightly off-topic from the off-topic post:

are you the viciouslime? eg, the creator of the viciousorange gtk theme? because that happens to be my all-time favourite.

but, i think "american" english is a joke. some rebels crossed the pond, started a new country on land they didn't own, and got lazy with the language they took from the motherland until it turned into the ignominy before us today.

plus, i deal a good bit with the french language, and many of the cognates are spelled in "british" (or 'true') english (or as i prefer, simply 'english'): centre, metre, organisation, foetus, and the like.
Drifting further off-topic: the cognates are simply corruptions of otherwise good Latin words. American English is thus much closer to the original Latin in many cases.

Of course, it's nothing like what happens in German, where the Germans simply swallowed whole Latin phrases whole. They stayed on in more or less their "pure" Latin forms.

Some lexicographers have noted the survival in North America of English usages that fell out of use in the mother country. The easy example that comes to mind is the use of "store" for "place where one purchases things". This meaning fell into disuse in England after the 17th century, but it persists in North America.

[dbbolton]

Just like my toothbrush... I don't share my computer. ;)
well-put.

[viciouslime]

slightly off-topic from the off-topic post:

are you the viciouslime? eg, the creator of the viciousorange gtk theme? because that happens to be my all-time favourite.

but, i think "american" english is a joke. some rebels crossed the pond, started a new country on land they didn't own, and got lazy with the language they took from the motherland until it turned into the ignominy before us today.

plus, i deal a good bit with the french language, and many of the cognates are spelled in "british" (or 'true') english (or as i prefer, simply 'english'): centre, metre, organisation, foetus, and the like.

Yup, that's me, and thank you!

I think you must be the first American I have ever come across who won't fight to the death to defend "American English". That's great! :D

[That_Geek]

Drifting further off-topic: the cognates are simply corruptions of otherwise good Latin words. American English is thus much closer to the original Latin in many cases.

Of course, it's nothing like what happens in German, where the Germans simply swallowed whole Latin phrases whole. They stayed on in more or less their "pure" Latin forms.

Some lexicographers have noted the survival in North America of English usages that fell out of use in the mother country. The easy example that comes to mind is the use of "store" for "place where one purchases things". This meaning fell into disuse in England after the 17th century, but it persists in North America.

no offense, but German is not a romance language, It is Germanic. There is not much latin in German, just a few random phrases and/or words

[dbbolton]

Drifting further off-topic: the cognates are simply corruptions of otherwise good Latin words. American English is thus much closer to the original Latin in many cases.

Of course, it's nothing like what happens in German, where the Germans simply swallowed whole Latin phrases whole. They stayed on in more or less their "pure" Latin forms.

Some lexicographers have noted the survival in North America of English usages that fell out of use in the mother country. The easy example that comes to mind is the use of "store" for "place where one purchases things". This meaning fell into disuse in England after the 17th century, but it persists in North America.
i got into an argument with my old chemistry teacher about latin words today. by old i mean former. she's quite young in age, actually.

when you look at the SIMPLIFIED etymology of an english word, it breaks down like this:

english word < latin word, meaning "different english word"

can you see why i might have a problem with that ? i ultimated attributed (i.e. - blamed) this excess number of english words to science and technology.

[FredSambo]

Yup, that's me, and thank you!

I think you must be the first American I have ever come across who won't fight to the death to defend "American English". That's great! :D

up here in maine, USA we speak a very interesting version of american english.

"i pah-k'd my cah in bah hah-bah, yessah." = i parked my car in bar harbor, yes sir.

"i walked my dog in havah-d yah'd" = i walked my dog in harvard yard.

something like that.

anyone here ever had or heard of a whoopie pie?

ever seen or eaten a red hot dog?

hmmm...

[dbbolton]

no offense, but German is not a romance language, It is Germanic. There is not much latin in German, just a few random phrases and/or words
right.

non enim me videbit homo et vivet

[dbbolton]

up here in maine, USA we speak a very interesting version of american english.

"i pah-k'd my cah in bah hah-bah, yessah." = i parked my car in bar harbor, yes sir.

"i walked my dog in havah-d yah'd" = i walked my dog in harvard yard.

something like that.

anyone here ever had or heard of a woopie pie?

ever seen or eaten a red hot dog?

hmmm...
Labstahs !

[FredSambo]

Labstahs !

yessah' bub!

:-D

[dbbolton]

Yup, that's me, and thank you!

I think you must be the first American I have ever come across who won't fight to the death to defend "American English". That's great! :D
it's a pity that i have to sound american ...

i think i need to move before i'm beaten up.
it'll happen.

[yabbadabbadont]

Yup, that's me, and thank you!

I think you must be the first American I have ever come across who won't fight to the death to defend "American English". That's great! :D

Spelling is something with which no true gentleman should concern himself.... :lol:

[mips]

Some lexicographers have noted the survival in North America of English usages that fell out of use in the mother country. The easy example that comes to mind is the use of "store" for "place where one purchases things". This meaning fell into disuse in England after the 17th century, but it persists in North America.

We still use the word 'store' with the word 'shop'