PDA

View Full Version : Ubuntu on the desktop



LaRoza
October 31st, 2007, 04:07 AM
Today, I was surprised to see Ubuntu being used by a non-technical person in school. This person was sitting behind me, and was talking to her friend next to her. I heard the word "Ubuntu", which is not a common word in everyday life (with non-geeks). I turned around and saw that she had Ubuntu on her laptop. It was setup by her husband (I think, perhaps boy-friend), and she liked it better than Windows. Her friend had an old laptop, that was "unupgradeable", and I suggested Xubuntu, and offered to give her the disk the next day.

It seems Ubuntu shows up in the most common of places, good news, I think. (The laptop the other had was very new, so it was obviously a case of bye-bye Vista)

-grubby
October 31st, 2007, 04:12 AM
good to see Ubuntu spreading

Palmyra
October 31st, 2007, 05:09 AM
As a total geek, you couldn't resist jumping into the conversation, right?

Can't blame you. I would have done the same thing.

Now all you have left to do is starting a really anti-n00b school club: call it The School's Apt-Get Club. Wait...even apt-get is too n00bish.

tubasoldier
October 31st, 2007, 05:44 AM
My wife was more computer literate when she used Windows than she is now.

At first she hated Linux. It wasn't windows, so I put windows back on her laptop. Needless to say she brought it to work and some retard put their infected laptop on the network and she brought the same virus home with her.

The virus did not effect me as I was pure linux by that point. She complained and I told her it was her decision to use windows and now her responsibility to get it off. So she did. She removed the virus all on her own. I was actually pretty proud of her.

A week goes by and she comes home and hands me her laptop. She had gotten the same virus every day at precisely the same time. She was already tired of removing it. "I want Linux back" she said.

Ever since then my very non-technical wife has used Linux. For years she has been telling her co-workers that she doesn't get viruses. For years her employer has ignored her laughter and snickering while they struggle to keep their networks up.

My mom and step-dad use Linux too. My mom hates it, she will come around. My step-dad thinks it is the most amazing thing ever. He loves the update-manager. He is a technical retard and the guys he works with are completely amazed that he even knows what Linux is let alone use it.

So my point is simple. I don't believe linux will ever have a mass conversion. It will start small, just like it has. It is like a snowball rolling down a hill. The more it travels and the farther it goes the more people will notice it. The growth will be a few here and a few there, but before you know it Linux will be a major player in the desktop market. All thanks to the few techno nerds who installed Linux on their family's computers.

rjmdomingo2003
October 31st, 2007, 05:51 AM
From one of our LoCo team, one of our airports (Philippines) have Ubuntu set up for waiting passengers.

macogw
October 31st, 2007, 06:03 AM
My mom uses Ubuntu. It's been almost a year for her. Within a month she was saying to her friend (no prompting from me, mind you), "she installed this Linux thing on the computer, and I love it! It's so much faster than Windows, and it's easier too!" I overheard it and thought, "wait...easier? OK that's something you're not supposed to hear. This is awesome." I didn't even stick around and help her with it. I just installed it and what programs I thought would be good one day, told her to click "Firefox" and it'll be the same as Mozilla, and told her to figure out the GNOME Menu herself when she wanted to type stuff. I went back to school (250 miles away), and I never got a tech support call.

The thing that prompted installing it was my sister saying to me, "when I go to college, I want a computer with Linux too. I like your computer, and I don't like viruses, and I don't want to pay for Windows." She had used my computer a couple weeks after I got it because it was the only way to IM on vacation, and she remembered it being pretty simple. I installed Ubuntu on their computer so she and my brother could get used to Ubuntu before they get their own Ubuntu computers. I'm slightly disappointed at how little experimenting they've done, though. They both (my siblings, I mean) know how to use Applications > Add/Remove, but neither of them does anything to the theme or anything. I don't think they've figured out how, really, but I told my brother gnome-look.org and that he can just drag n drop. Maybe at Thanksgiving I'll sit the two of them down and demo the theme tools in Gutsy (right after I upgrade it to Gutsy).

A completely non-technical girl in my Japanese class last year started using Ubuntu after her then-boyfriend saw me using it in class and decided to switch both of them to it.

Hortinstein
October 31st, 2007, 07:59 AM
haha yeah I have had plenty of people asking me what is on my laptop when they see the fancy compiz desktop effects and see how fast it boots up and runs.