Installing Ubuntu On A Completely New User's Computer

[InuyashaDuelist]

So, this weekend, I'm going to be heading up to the mountains to my dad's friend's house. He has a fourteen-year-old son who he's nearly completely limited computer access to, so he has barely any computer experience thus far. I think that all he knows how to do is open the web browser.

His father's allowing him to get a computer in his room now, and he gave my dad the box to set it up for him. My dad let me customize the way I see fit. I was considering installing Ubuntu.

Now I ask this: What programs should I get someone who's never learned to use a computer? I want to get it to just work well for him, and with everything in his grasp. What do you think?

[ixus_123]

tux typing would be a good start.

Also perhaps lbreakout2 - it's a game, a great game and should be a fun way to get someone used to using a mouse for the first time.

If they have fast internet, google earth is good for the WOW factor.

[%hMa@?b<C]

1) Firefox, install flash java etc for him
2) Pidgin IM (or gaim or whatever its called now)
3) Set him up with a gmail account
4) No beryl, please. That will just confuse him
5) make only one desktop, no virtual desktops. Those confuse the hell out of my brothers on my computer
6) Autologin, that will make it easier. If he is the only one who will be using it, no need for the extra security

[Compucore]

Some of the games that are in there by default. How about some of the educational things that are in the add/remove sections that are related to his age group? Maybe check with his father to see what he may like that he could use within ubuntu within reason as well too. Don't want to dump too much intoh the machine that he doesn't need.

Compucore

[Hex_Mandos]

Maybe Edubuntu rather than Ubuntu? Just for the default packages.

[H.E. Pennypacker]

Stay away from anything BETA, and make sure you don't confuse him with unneeded and bleeding edge software. Turn off automatic upgrades. You've heard the saying before: do not fix something that is not broken. Upgrades usually work well, but for someone who does not know what he's doing, upgrades are not appropriate.

Show him the ropes, and introduce him to these forums just in case he fails somewhere.

[ronocdh]

Wow, all awesome answers! I don't disagree with anyone! Where am I?


I'd give the poor chap some games, whatever you can find.
VLC for any videos he wants to watch. (He's 14; the dad had damn well better expect porn to happen soon, sorry.)
Audacity. Why not? Is he musical? It's innocent fun.
Give him a tour of OpenOffice so he understands the paradigms of office computing and word processing.
Most important, I'd give him a brief tour of the internet; show him sites like YouTube, Netvibes, etc. (Gmail and Ubuntu Forums were both very good mentions already). Computing skills are very important, but internet skills perhaps even more so (albeit less fundamental).
Also, teach him that he's using Linux. You don't have to proselytize; just make sure he knows the difference between Windows and OS X and Linux, because the kid is young and in socializing he'll notice differences and perhaps be confused.

Oh, and I see your user icon, mister; no KDE! ;)

Good luck!

[maniacmusician]

Wow, all awesome answers! I don't disagree with anyone! Where am I?


I'd give the poor chap some games, whatever you can find.
VLC for any videos he wants to watch. (He's 14; the dad had damn well better expect porn to happen soon, sorry.)
Audacity. Why not? Is he musical? It's innocent fun.
Give him a tour of OpenOffice so he understands the paradigms of office computing and word processing.
Most important, I'd give him a brief tour of the internet; show him sites like YouTube, Netvibes, etc. (Gmail and Ubuntu Forums were both very good mentions already). Computing skills are very important, but internet skills perhaps even more so (albeit less fundamental).
Also, teach him that he's using Linux. You don't have to proselytize; just make sure he knows the difference between Windows and OS X and Linux, because the kid is young and in socializing he'll notice differences and perhaps be confused.

Oh, and I see your user icon, mister; no KDE! ;)

Good luck!
pffft, KDE all the way man ;)

you should also consider details like the specs of the system. for instance, my parents own a couple of old laptops that they can't really do much with on windows, so I've put Xubuntu on them, and customized it a bit (brought it back to the regular XFCE look. The changes that the xubuntu team has made to it annoy the hell out of me), and they're happily using them now.

If it's a modern system (1GB of RAM or more, p4 or better processor), I'd go with either Ubuntu or Kubuntu. Kubuntu is my personal reccomendation since I like KDE just a little bit better than gnome (though I usually keep them both around just for the hell of switching back and forth once in a while...I keep xfce too). But it would be better to just introduce him to one DE at a time.

Make sure that you can stay there for a while and educate him a little. If you just blindly throw him into it, he won't learn it really. Find some good resources for him (there's a very good HOWTO on these forums that contains an intro to terminal commands), show him the ropes, let him know that Linux is different than windows.

[%hMa@?b<C]

pffft, KDE all the way man ;)

you should also consider details like the specs of the system. for instance, my parents own a couple of old laptops that they can't really do much with on windows, so I've put Xubuntu on them, and customized it a bit (brought it back to the regular XFCE look. The changes that the xubuntu team has made to it annoy the hell out of me), and they're happily using them now.

If it's a modern system (1GB of RAM or more, p4 or better processor), I'd go with either Ubuntu or Kubuntu. Kubuntu is my personal reccomendation since I like KDE just a little bit better than gnome (though I usually keep them both around just for the hell of switching back and forth once in a while...I keep xfce too). But it would be better to just introduce him to one DE at a time.

Make sure that you can stay there for a while and educate him a little. If you just blindly throw him into it, he won't learn it really. Find some good resources for him (there's a very good HOWTO on these forums that contains an intro to terminal commands), show him the ropes, let him know that Linux is different than windows.

ooh... how I hate the default look of that taskbar at the bottom not filling the whole screen. The Xubuntu teams tweaks are the same tweaks that I used to make to xfce4

[MonkeyBoy]

Don't forget to add Ubuntu Forum and Ubuntu Guide to his bookmark bar on Firefox, then show him how to search stuff.

I think we are a pretty good community for n00bs. :)

[ixus_123]

Might also be a good idea to hide some of the applications / utilities in the drop down menus.

If he has access to help forums he can alway enable them again when needed - things like root terminal, perhaps themes, and anything else that could potentially mess up the system a little of confuse.

Adding a few bookmarks to the defualt web browser would also be a nice touch.

if you are using a british date format, that needs to be set in open office prefs. It confused em a bit first time I was using OO Calc. Amazingly gnumeric wont allow British date format (dd/mm/yy) - much to my annoyance as it loads spreadsheets a bazillion times faster than Calc :(

[timpino]

I have a tip for a game Battle for Wesnoth which can be found at http://www.wesnoth.org/ if it's not in the repos, might be able to occupy him for a while :)

[PrimoTurbo]

To be frankly honest I think Linux is way behind the user-friendliness of OSX or Windows, eventually the kid will hit a problem that he wont be able to resolve and it will frustrate him a lot.

Also don't forget that 95% of the stuff on the internet is targeted towards Windows, what if he wants to download some game or software off a site. He wont be able to install it and wine is far too complicated for a NEW user.

Watching new users struggle with Linux is just painful I have done to my parents before.