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View Full Version : The new Windows "thing"?



luke411
April 3rd, 2007, 11:23 PM
I fly a lot and was just wondering if this was currently happening to anyone else. Every time someone glances over at my laptop and looks at my gnome desktop, they ask "Is that the new Windows Vista thing?". The first couple of times I just chuckled and wrote it off but as it continued to happen I began wondering how many people would try linux today if they just had 5 minutes to play around with it on someone else's pc. Oh well. Just curious.

Stickymaddness
April 3rd, 2007, 11:27 PM
Very good point!

I went to a computer exhibition a good couple of years ago, and there was a huge Linux stand, showing off the latest and seksiest linux features of the time. The stand was busier than the microsoft stand, and the exhibitioners could barely keep up with all the people wanting install cds!

FuturePilot
April 3rd, 2007, 11:31 PM
I began wondering how many people would try linux today if they just had 5 minutes to play around with it on someone else's pc.
I've come to realize that a first hand experience with Ubuntu or Linux in general, does a lot more than just telling someone about it. I installed Ubuntu on the shared PC and set up an account for my mom. Slowly I noticed that she started using Ubuntu more and more. Now she uses Ubuntu almost exclusively. And I didn't even have to say anything. It sold itself.:)

maniacmusician
April 3rd, 2007, 11:34 PM
you've hit the nail right on the head. It really is the best way to get people to appreciate it.

luke411
April 3rd, 2007, 11:34 PM
The truly amazing part of the whole concept is I don't run anything 'fancy' on gnome, just a Gdesklet for a to-do list. I can only imagine what they would think if they saw Beryl or something crazy, spinning around on the pc. LOL

maniacmusician
April 3rd, 2007, 11:45 PM
The truly amazing part of the whole concept is I don't run anything 'fancy' on gnome, just a Gdesklet for a to-do list. I can only imagine what they would think if they saw Beryl or something crazy, spinning around on the pc. LOL
Their jaw drops. They get a gleam in their eye. They say things like "WTF? How did you do that? That's f*cking amazing!" And they'll want to install it on their computer right away. They usually don't anticipate the learning curve, and consequently, tend to crash and burn when trying to use Linux because they really just expected Windows + Cool graphics, not a whole different OS.

FoolsGold
April 3rd, 2007, 11:47 PM
The truly amazing part of the whole concept is I don't run anything 'fancy' on gnome, just a Gdesklet for a to-do list. I can only imagine what they would think if they saw Beryl or something crazy, spinning around on the pc. LOL
Heart attack probably. Good thing to do on a plane. :)

Yeah, I agree with the point though. In particular, how if you want someone to convert to Linux, don't just give them the list of benefits, let them actually USE it for themselves. Heck, even if they don't want to convert, at least they'll appreciate why you use it. Might even stop some people saying it's not a "real" os.

forrestcupp
April 3rd, 2007, 11:52 PM
The problem is that looks can be deceiving. I have an awesome looking system that blows Vista out of the water. I know. I got a free upgrade to Vista, installed it, was disappointed, took it off my computer and installed Feisty Beta from scratch. The only problem is that it took me days to get everything working how I like it from scratch. So people look at my awesome system, but don't know about the days I spent getting it working. If I wouldn't have already been familiar with GNU/Linux, it would have taken me longer. All I'm saying is people should either know this in advance, or have someone to set it all up for them. If all they are going by is what they saw without knowing anything about Linux, they'll be more apt to give up. After everything is set up, nothing compares, though.

I will admit that a lot has been done to make things much easier than it was in the past.