How to convince my sister to use Ubuntu???

[v.cube]

I'm an engineering student. I love computers, like most of you. How should I convince my sister who is doing medicine( to be a doctor) to use Ubuntu? I'm finding it to be a headache to give her reasons to shift from XP to Linux(Ubuntu). I'm speaking trash like "It is free", I'm unable to handle her questions. Please help. I would love to know the methods which u have used/ any suggestions??

[montres]

What's with the bold letters? Anyway, what kind of questions does your sister ask? I think that Ubuntu has many advantages but I don't know which one your sister would be more interested in.

[SomeGuyDude]

Here's what you need to do.

Give her a disc, tell her it's free and convince her to put it on a small HD partition. Then encourage her to spend just one day using it, and if she has any questions or needs help to come to you.

If, once she's got all the information and has given it a fair shake, wants Windows, let her use it. Sometimes you can't convince people no matter how wrong and misguided their ideas are. Just look at the Republican Party.

[Scarath]

Tell her David Duchovney uses it .... or whoever the girls like these days :)

[mikewhatever]

Ask yourself a few questions first:
1. Is your sister happy with XP?
2. Does she like messing with computers too, or does she want an OS she knows?
3. Are you (or someone else) going to be able to provide support for Ubuntu?
4. Has she any 'Windows only' software to use for school?

Remember, that not everything that's good for you is automatically good for your sister, show her Ubuntu, let her try it.

On the second thought, just leave her alone.

[Fbot1]

I suggest being calm.

[Northsider]

Tell her David Duchovney uses it .... or whoever the girls like these days :)

lol, that may work. :)

It's hard to convince somebody. I know the advatages of Ubuntu and Linux and I still had a hard time coming over. It's tough to convince the average user.

[gerod]

probably she doesnt care about computers, she only use them...
but i think that u can show her great things like themes, beryl or funny things
and moreover to show her that she can do the same things that is doing with xp

[Kosimo]

I think that you can convince her telling about how secure is linux compared to windows. Tell her about virus, antivirus, trojan, spyware everything messed and compromising her important personal data. In Linux, no worries.
Antivirus? You don't need it, there's no virus for linux.

You have to make a serious voice and say... You won't loose all your projects for that new virus around.

Be sure, be safe, be Linux



How does it sounds? :)

[mmb1]

Let her have a look at this:

http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/


Best of luck! :)

[billgoldberg]

The things I usually mention are:

1. no viruses, spyware, malware, ...
2. All software gets updates in 1 click
3. stunning 3d and 2d visual effects
4. over 20.000 pieces of software you can download from a build-in program
5. stable and fast
6. Multiple destkops -> faster working
6. free

After telling her that, let her use your pc.

Maybe show here some gtk2 themes or the awn dock or some compiz fusion plugins like expo or the cube.

[bobbybobington]

Check out her computer's hardware first. Crappy hardware can be a deal-breaker . Otherwise I totally agree with billgoldberg

[v.cube]

Here's what you need to do.

Give her a disc, tell her it's free and convince her to put it on a small HD partition. Then encourage her to spend just one day using it, and if she has any questions or needs help to come to you.

If, once she's got all the information and has given it a fair shake, wants Windows, let her use it. Sometimes you can't convince people no matter how wrong and misguided their ideas are. Just look at the Republican Party.

thx, nice post.

[v.cube]

probably she doesnt care about computers, she only use them...
but i think that u can show her great things like themes, beryl or funny things
and moreover to show her that she can do the same things that is doing with xp

First, we discussed about advantages of Linux. I said that u can improve it, unlike XP. I gave her the example of my College Juniors, who are designing a Linux Distro for enginnering students( has all the software required by enginnering students, like Open-source alternative to MATLAB). I said that a Linux distro could be designed for Doctors with Softwares used by medical professionals, like:

Medical History of Patients,
Dictionary of Treatments for various Disease,
Symptoms' Analyzer,
Tele-Conferencing with experts in rural hospitals,etc.,



Also yesterday, i made her use firefox on Linux to check e-mail.

Then I forced her to open the Screen Savers. She was v.v.impressed with the ScreenSavers. She kept on saying "You don't have so many in XP, right!" many times. I added, that these were also v.good. She especially liked Hufo's tunnel, End Game. Fiberlamp, Flip Flop and Flip Screen 3D. In the end, she was saying that I wouldn't mind recommending Ubuntu to my friends, just for the ScreenSavers!!!:):lolflag:

[Quillz]

I say you just give it up and let your sister use the software she wants to use. No one here is on a holy war, and getting one more person to use Ubuntu won't increase market share or add any inches. So if people don't want to use Linux, oh well, life goes on.

[graabein]

What kind of programs does she usually use? What does she need for school?

Add them all and make a sweet theme for her, put up all the neat little programs so they're easy to find and maybe a game or two.

There's a lot of reasons to use GNU/Linux but I think the first step is to make it pretty and cover her needs, then the other stuff comes later, how you can customise it and it runs fast without virus and malware and programs interrupting you all the time...

Good luck!

[v.cube]

The things I usually mention are:

1. no viruses, spyware, malware, ...
2. All software gets updates in 1 click
3. stunning 3d and 2d visual effects
4. over 20.000 pieces of software you can download from a build-in program
5. stable and fast
6. Multiple destkops -> faster working
6. free

After telling her that, let her use your pc.

Maybe show here some gtk2 themes or the awn dock or some compiz fusion plugins like expo or the cube.
Good reply, thx

[Northsider]

Tell her you don't need to be a programmer to use it and not everything is done by using the terminal. In fact...don't even mention the terminal. lol

[aimran]

Send her over to my place and I'll convince her to use Ubuntu ;)

:popcorn:

[Irihapeti]

Assuming all her hardware works, choose your time. Wait until the latest round of Windows updates have broken something...

[CM Xtasy]

For some people, Windows XP is just more efficient than other operating systems. Maybe her programs that work on Windows wont work on Linux? It's natural for someone to stick with something they're familiar with, rather than going to the unknown and finding time to learn another concept.

[HermanAB]

Simple - give your sis an Eee PC for her birthday.

[kamaboko]

This is a long shot, but maybe she has other things on her mind and doesn't share your enthusiasm for operating systems. Better to spend your time encouraging her to succeed in medicine...that she will be receptive to.

[ubuntu27]

Wow! For a moment I though I was reading my own post. I have a female cousin who just became a MD.
I have tried to persuader to use GNU/Linux. I presented her the idealogies, GNU's philosophies, the downside of Propietary software, etc.

She used my computer (that had Ubuntu and Windows back then. Now it is dualbooting Debain and Windows).
My computer had 512 MB of RAM when she was trying out Ubuntu with my computer. She usually only used Firefox to browse and amsn to chat.

She had a bad impression of ubuntu thanks to amsn. It was really slow. Now that I updated my RAM to 1 GB (512 MB + 512 MB), it is faster.


I think you should do a research about what programs she needs. Does her programs run on Linux? Or let her read that Linux can and it is used in Hospitals (not all of them though)

LIST OF LINKS ABOUT LINUX AND MEDICINE
Check out:

Linux Medical News (http://linuxmednews.com/)

Journal of Open Source Medical Computing (http://josmc.org/)

Medical Application in Linux (http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Medicine-HOWTO.html#toc2)

Linux Medicine How-To (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/pdf/Medicine-HOWTO.pdf)

Debian-Med (http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/)

Linux for Clinics (http://linuxforclinics.sourceforge.net/mainsite/)

NEWS
News: Mercy Hospital Opens Arms to Open Source Enterprise Systems Management (http://www.linuxtoday.com/it_management/2006080902326NWDP)

NEWS:
"Health care software vendor McKesson Provider Technologies is focusing on ways to cut IT costs for customers, including hospitals and medical offices. The cure is moving many of McKesson's medical software applications to Linux, which can then be used on less expensive commodity hardware instead of expensive mainframes.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9052142

Leading Hospital Uses Linux (http://www.mixx.com/stories/101071/leading-hospital-uses-linux)
"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in Boston, Mass., has migrated to Red Hat solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Global File System, Red Hat Cluster Suite and Red Hat Network."

http://www.centredaily.com/business/technology/story/393977.html

GNU's Philosophies (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/)

[Fred_E _krugar]

Put a Virus on her comp.

Dooms Day Preferred.

Then you can say "see I told ya to use Ubuntu".

If she finds out you did that you better put a helmet on to protect your gourd.

[RAV TUX]

I'm an engineering student. I love computers, like most of you. How should I convince my sister who is doing medicine( to be a doctor) to use Ubuntu? I'm finding it to be a headache to give her reasons to shift from XP to Linux(Ubuntu). I'm speaking trash like "It is free", I'm unable to handle her questions. Please help. I would love to know the methods which u have used/ any suggestions??Give her a hug and let her know you love her. ;)