Ubuntu Spotting

[profshiny]

I just had my first real-life encounter with a fellow Ubuntu user (well, first besides the person I converted recently.)
I spotted a patron at the library where I work using a laptop bearing an Ubuntu sticker, running Ubuntu, trying to get wireless working to connect to these very forums. We had a brief but pleasant chat until I had to take a phone call.
I realize lots of other people use Ubuntu, but I've never met any until today. How about you guys? Have you encountered Ubuntu "in the wild"? Have you seen it on laptops in public, at school, at work, struck up a conversation with someone due to recognition of a common OS that has become a cultural phenomenon? Tell us! We're a growing movement, but encouragement is still nice, so come on and preach to the choir.

[spockrock]

I went to a friends party at his house, he uses gentoo but I randomly met an ubuntu user there....

[BarfBag]

Besides the friends I've converted (and me, of course), I haven't met a single Ubuntu user in person. I know a few SUSE users, though.

[Tomosaur]

I've seen some guy running Ubuntu on his laptop during lectures. I always sit at the back (easy escape!), so I get a good view.

[Stex]

I get a *lot* of interest (even before beryl/compiz) in my ubuntu laptop in college. People always "mean to try it" but never get around to it.

I've not seen anyone else with ubuntu who hasn't got it from me but there is a kid from college with an ubuntu sticker on his laptop. Except his laptop runs windows, and he's never used anything but windows. As socialy acceptable as linux is nowerdays is it really some form of trend symbol? *dispare*

[slimdog360]

I once suggested someone try Ubuntu on a forumy type thing at uni and someone replied that Ubuntu was the coolest. So Im guessing that the person used ubuntu also.

[dbbolton]

trying to get wireless working to connect

haha

[IYY]

Only once, in the subway in Toronto. A guy was sitting next to me with Ubuntu on his laptop, watching anime.

[apollo1900]

Actually, I had tried installing it on an old Mac with no luck, I was talking to a friend in the IT business about Ubuntu, and in tern, he hooked me up with a shiny G4 with Dapper installed.

I also have a friend who has tried just about every distro except Ubuntu.

[Peter Mount]

I was at a job interview before Christmas and I told them my main OS is Ubuntu. Then the Manager interviewing me told me they use Ubuntu.

Gee, I hope I get the job :-D

[towsonu2003]

I don't even know a *single* Linux user... yay

[macogw]

I don't think LUG counts, so no.

I haven't spotted other people, but kids in my Japanese and Anthropology classes have gone "hey, is that Linux?" or made comments when the teacher was asking what OS we all used (in regard to file formats) and I said "Linux" and confused the teacher (I think most kids were confused, a few understood, and the kid in front of me turned around and said "I'm impressed" while another later asked why a non-Engineering-School kid was using Linux). A couple kids (like, an actual "couple") in my Japanese class switched to Ubuntu just after school started. When one kid in the class later said "girls don't use Linux" 2 kids pointed out that I use it and so does another girl (the boyfriend was one of the pointer-out-ers). One kid in the class thought it was a funny-looking Mac.

[3rdalbum]

I talk to the people who work at various electronics stores. Not only do none of them use Ubuntu, but they keep telling me to switch to other distributions! (so far, I've had salespeople telling me to switch to Gentoo, Fedora and Debian!)

[oyvindaa]

I once met a teacher on a party who said he'd just started using Ubuntu. He seemed to be pleased with it :)

[roderikk]

At my university I have actually met a few people who are using ubuntu or were using another distro and whom I pointed in the direction of ubuntu. It is becoming more accepted around here. The only reason I heard that a few weren't using it full time was because it didn't support their webcam/msn capabilities very well...

However, just this weekend I have switched my mothers computer over to Ubuntu. I had already put her on that path a year ago by switching her to Thunderbird for her email and Firefox for her browsing. Now it was just a matter of copying her profiles to her home folder and explaining she has to login with a username and password and she is all set to go. She said she really liked the default background! :-)

[happy-and-lost]

I don't even know a *single* Linux user... yay

Aside from my technophobic family I converted, me neither. I guess that's to be expected when you go to an all girls' college...

[bastiegast]

I don't know anybody using ubuntu. Sometimes I ran into some linux users, in the elektronic store for example, they all used linux :rolleyes: . In my school I actually saw a girl from fourth grade (15 - 16 years old in my country) wearing a t-shirt with a huge tux printed on the front of it 0.o

[macogw]

Aside from my technophobic family I converted, me neither. I guess that's to be expected when you go to an all girls' college...
Why's that? There's 3 Linux users in my Japanese class. We're 67% female.

[tommytom]

The Leith Food Co-Op (and Anarchist den) use Ubuntu on their free "as in beer" to use computers. They had shiny new Ubuntu CD's as well which helped to lure me in from the street. FYI they are on Montgomery Street, have an excellent little libary, some food stuff (obviously) and the guys i met where very nice indeed, so check it out unless of course that involves a ten hour flight, it's not that great ;)

[AndyCooll]

I have given some computer parts away on our local Freecycle. I give away a CD as part of the deal. Through this I have met a couple of guys using Ubuntu. Indeed one guy I met has set up a company recycling pc's. The OS he puts on them is Ubuntu. Another guy was looking for parts so he could build himself an Ubuntu server.

:cool:

[Mateo]

also don't know any linux users. only a couple of mac users.

[BLTicklemonster]

Why's that? There's 3 Linux users in my Japanese class. We're 67% female.

It's the hairy knuckles that make up the other 33 percent?



:)


anyway, so no, there's no enlightened people in these here parts. They all gots their pick up trucks and hound dogs, what do they need with linux?

and our I(dio)T troglodytes at work... they take the whole concept of "educated fool" to soaring heights. One was putting a printer in the office next to mine, it only had a usb port, no place for the lpt1 port cable thing whatever, (I get he knew the name for it, though.. oooooh) and I asked if he needed a usb cable for it (I had a spare) and sure enough, he did. I commented on what a bunch of hooey it is that printers don't come with cables, and his remark was intended to make me feel stupid, "well, it's because printers can use either one kind of cable or another of course". "Gee", my reply was, "I can't seem to find that silly ole usb cable, I guess you need to run get one at Staples" Rather than point out that the printer in front of him only had the ability to use a usb cable, therefore his moronic comment was basically pointless. You mention ubuntu to them, or linux for that matter, and it's the same old routine, "microsoft is the only software you need to run. why do you waste your time with linux, it's little more than an oddity"

[sloggerkhan]

People who think they know ALL about computers and don't know jack are the worst...

I know a gentoo user and a fedora user, and one xubuntu user. But the xubuntu user I converted mostly because her computer was to slow to run windows very well...
(Only 256 megs of RAM, slow componants, bogged down with crap before I fixed it...)

[Taino]

"Ubuntu Spotting"... hmm does this count?

I was looking for information on custom built external harddrive enclosures since i was considering making one and my search turned up lots of links including this one made from an old Pentium 2 cpu enclosure, but boy was i surprised when i clicked the link and well encountered Ubuntu.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30789011@N00/261024567/in/pool-make/

[helliewm]

I started this thread and met Ken ( BigKen) a fellow Ubuntu user who quite literally lives down the road from me. I took the PC over to his house and he fixed it for me! Unbelivable, I was amazed. I made a friend through the forum!

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=339101&highlight=stuck+installation

Its a brilliant community, I am addicted now!

Helen

[BLTicklemonster]

Looks like the lady's a fan!!!

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4993/liberty3su0.th.png (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=liberty3su0.png)

no really, I did find that our I(dio)T department has an ubuntu server running vmware on it. This surprised me because ... well, it's them. But they did hire someone who actually seems to know his ascii from a hole in the ground, and he's the one who set it up, so maybe there's hope for that department after all.

[BLTicklemonster]

I was at a job interview before Christmas and I told them my main OS is Ubuntu. Then the Manager interviewing me told me they use Ubuntu.

Gee, I hope I get the job :-D

Well? Did you get the job?

[EdThaSlayer]

Sadly, everone in my school thinks that to use Linux you need to read this big fat 400 page manual. So, I have never met anyone that also uses Ubuntu.

[Sunnz]

Saw a few Kubuntu, one Edubuntu in lectures... there were one Gentoo as well...

All lecturers I have seen are either running Windows or Fedora, one running OSX, one has a Mac notebook at home... I was been told that they are all running Ubuntu at their office... though I saw one ssh back to their office and it had a huge Debian background.

Actually, the course I am doing is software engineering... so I guess it doesn't count...

[galacticaboy]

I know 2 people who use Linux, My husband's friend uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux for himself, and a friend of my parents uses Fedora on the computers where he works as the IT admin at a School for the HandiCapable. My husband tried using Linux, he even has MoonOS on a dual Boot with Windows 7, but just does not like it, he is a gamer and prefers Windows. Ugh I dream of the day when we go to the store and just buy a computer and not have to choose between Windows and MAC, it's already chosen, ITS LINUX!

[Quadunit404]

Necromancer!