Would you give an Ubuntu machine to a friend? (long)

[Wartooth]

I apologize for the length of this post. I'm tired and rambly right now.

I'm about to be faced with an interesting situation tomorrow morning. You see, I've promised to give a computer to a friend who is in need of one. It will be the machine I am using this very moment, with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS making everything happen. The hardware is a rescued old emachine with a HDD I had laying about. Ubuntu installed very, very easily on here. However, this is my first ever experience with Linux of any kind, so I am not one who would be fantastic at tech support.

My friend is not necessarily a computer-savvy individual. She has used them at work over the years, had a laptop for a brief while that ran XP, but they've just been appliances that did the basic email, internet, document thing and they've all been Windows.

She is also interested in using the computer to try to make inexpensive calls to her home country of Pakistan. In the past, I have shown her Skype, but I am completely unfamiliar with the alternatives. I looked at Ekiga's site but did not see anything about pricing for calls of any sort. :confused:

She will not be picking up the computer tomorrow, she is waiting until she has a place of her own (she's recently returned to this country and is staying with friends until her paychecks can afford her a cheap car and an apartment). I am going to show her Ubuntu and try to explain it as best I can, so that she may choose freely what she wants. If she would feel more comfortable with Windows, so be it, I will buy her a copy and install it. I would also add Firefox, OpenOffice.org and a few other things to be of use to her.

She is also not a native English speaker, so I looked into support available in her own language of Urdu, but most of the links were broken. I do believe she may be interested in Ubuntu as an option, but until I have spent a LOT more time with this OS, I won't be much use as personal tech support. She also does not have the time to devote to learning command lines. Working three jobs and being a new mother means she just can't sit down and try to read documentation or tutorials. Not all n00bs and clueless users are lazy, some simply do not have the time, and she would be one of the far-too-busy ones.

In the meantime, I have a 1GB thumb drive that I've installed a few things on from PortableApps, such as Firefox, OO.o, etc., and will likely be putting Skype on there, too, if she asks. That way, she can use her friend's Windows machine with a bit more privacy and protection.

What would you do in my position? Have you had any experiences similar to mine? How do you think I could best explain Ubuntu?

I'd have posted about this earlier, but I hadn't heard from her in several days, and she called tonight, hoping to make plans for tomorrow.

Thanks.

[unbuntu]

Can't suggest you on should or shouldn't but just so you know, Skype has a Linux version. It differs from the Windows version in that it can't do video but other than that they are identical.

[Hex_Mandos]

IF your hardware is supported, then basic use of Ubuntu could be easier than basic use of Windows. If all she does is Skype, use Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc. then everything should be fine. Just be sure to load all the proprietary stuff from Automatix: codecs, Flash, Skype, etc. After she's used to Ubuntu, you can teach her how to use the Add-Remove software menu entry (no need to use the terminal, and less complicated than Synaptic). My mother is happily using Ubuntu now (and has tried both Gnome and KDE), but she doesn't know how to exit the BIOS setup menu (to illustrate how little she knows about computers). She doesn't find it harder than Windows at all.

[K.Mandla]

It has been difficult for me to give away a computer with Linux on it unless (a) the person wanted Linux in the first place, (b) they know it's going to be different, and (c) I'm around to coach them when they run into stumbling blocks.

I think if you can reassure people while they learn for themselves, they love it. If things break and you tell them to fix it themselves, they fix it with a copy of XP they borrowed from a friend. :(

[Wartooth]

Thank you for the replies.

No worries about the Linux version of Skype not doing video. I don't think she'd need that feature. I do think I'll try loading it on here so that I can see for myself how it is.

As far as I can tell, this machine really likes Ubuntu. Installation was perfect. The only problem I had with it was trying to make it deal with my 24" LCD, which wound up as asking far too much of the onboard video. It will be fine with any of the CRTs we'll be giving her, though.

I think that given her limited time, and short list of needs, that Ubuntu really might be a viable choice for her, but I'm not going to push the issue if she seems uncomfortable with the idea of it. I'd certainly be willing to help her tech-wise, although it'd wind up being a learning experience for me as I tried to solve any issues that came up :)

I'm going to be building a dedicated Ubuntu box in the next week or two, as soon as I have the bits and pieces together, as I'm wanting to give this a serious try myself.

Haven't heard from her yet today...hopefully she's getting some well-deserved rest.

[jamesstansell]

I don't feel confident recommending Automatix for a situation like this. Supporting the system will likely be better if one of the other options is used. I'd have to suggest using the notes from help.ubuntu.com (and the community-maintained section if needed) to install the minimum proprietary stuff. Probably not more than flash, mp3 and msfonts for starters.

[raul_]

If you already installed everything, then i guess it's pretty safe. It's like coming out of the store having everything pre-installed. You should warn her, and then spend a couple of hours (maybe) explaining everything, and letting her use the computer alone, just to see if she runs into any problems. If she does, just explain it to her, and it's probable that she won't forget it :) Make sure you tell her it's free and blablabla

[Polygon]

just make sure that the basics are installed, java, multimedia codecs, flash, some media playing software, and if she just uses the computer for surfing the web / typing papers, then she should be fine.

but do spend some time and explain the basics, where to find applications, etc

[falsedust]

I was in a similar situation last christmas, my parents put together a PC for one of my sisters. But as they didn't have a spare Xp Cd so we put Ubuntu 6.06 on it. I did have a few problems setting it up mainly sorting out playing DVD's and having 5.1 surround sound. After a few days her hard drive died, it was an older drive, so I replaced it and reinstalled everything again and it seemed fine.

I gave her all the updates and gave it a thorough testing for a week and walked her through as much as I could when we gave it back to her. She is not a computer person and just wanted to write her letters, listen to music, watch DVD's and print out her baby photos and maybe use the net when she gets it. I am not the most experienced Linux user but either way if she had a problem with her computer be it Xp or ubuntu I would still get a call to help her.

It is my understanding that nearly all the problems with running Linux are in the setting up stage or installing software. So once it is setup and running it should be easy to use, unless you get a hardware fault. In the end the average person isn't going to be doing anything different with Ubuntu than they would be doing with Xp.

[DoctorMO]

I would recommend against paying for a version of windows xp what ever you do, not only because a) it's not available any more and b) because giving money to Microsoft is a bad idea, you wouldn't give money to Bush, don't give money to Billy either. it just encourages them and gives your personal thumbs up that the way they conduct business is ok (it isn't in my eyes)

As for the problems you can have when you have a machine like that, my sisters are typical given the option they will use windows xp. my mum on the other hand really likes ubuntu and was using it a lot until my sisters reconfigured the internet so her laptop (xp) was the only computer using it which if I wasn't 3,000 miles away would have gotten rather heated.

[muguwmp67]

I've got a few old laptops waiting to be refurbished, no way are they going to be able to run XP well, much less Vista. Linux is their best hope for continued life.

These old laptops aren't useless, although their owners think they are. I'm working with one of them right now to see what I need to do to set up the PC so they can perform the basic functions they need: word processing/office, email, web browsing, dial up internet connection, wireless and music/video if the machines can handle it

I've got some friends on fixed incomes, and for 30 bucks for a wireless card, they'll have a machine that they can take to the local coffeehouse and fit right in. I'm not having any second thoughts about whether Linux will work for them.

[argie]

I think it could work. Just setup all the stuff most users expect to see there, flash, the w32codecs, and other multimedia. I'm not sure about this, but a lot of not-very-computer-savvy users somehow find the latest version of software and have trouble installing it so if she belongs to that group make sure Firefox 2 is installed or there'll be weird trouble.

Also, perhaps you had better help her setup Gaim if she's going to want messenger. People have been confused by this account business before if they only ever used yahoo messenger before (there it's just type your username and password).

But I think you must be prepared to receive a couple of getting-used-to calls to start off with. Good Luck! And post back on how succesful it works out!

[glabouni]

I assume your friend is gonna have internet access, so I suggest you show her how to activate the remote access to her session via vnc, this way you can help her remotely.

it has helped me a lot with giving support to people far away from me.

you can also take advantage of linux multi user capacity by making yourself a user account on the machine. make sure you can access it via ssh.
this way you can still help in the ventuality xserver is not starting. saved me time and money to be able to restore a previous backup of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

as a last resort you should provide a way to restore the system to its original fully configured and working state.
to do this I use partimage from sysrescue CD (http://www.sysresccd.org/) to make an image of the fully working and configured system. I made a separate home partition (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome) to be sure user configuration and documents are not lost during restoration.

be sure to provide ubuntu live cd too, it can be used to use the computer anyways (email, internet, openoffice), and access user files when the installed system is broken.