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Mazza558
March 14th, 2008, 06:00 PM
This thread's about any encounters (direct or indirect) with people in public (or just in your family), who have mentioned Linux. You might have overheard a conversation on a bus, for example.

This is what I heard today, a conversation between 2 kids from school:


person A: what operating system do you use?
person B: what do you mean?
A: like, XP, Vista...
B: Vista.
A: vista is really bad.
B: I like it.
A: have you heard of Linux?
B: nope.
A: it's an operating system, made by the Swedish...no, I think it's Norwegian people, but they release it for free. It's amazing, it's really good.
B: How do you know?
A: I saw it on someone's laptop. It's like a Mac...

It made me smile - although it's good that Linux is slowly spreading, it's fun to hear people's misconceptions about it.

JawsThemeSwimming428
March 14th, 2008, 08:29 PM
Nice story. I overheard a conversation between two "tech's" in my local Circuit City store that was quite funny. They were speaking of how much they dislike Windows Vista and one was like "Have you ever tried Linux?" The other man said, "Yea, but it was too hard to get working so I gave up." Then the first kid mentioned something about going to the User Group meeting! I was shocked that I found someone who knows about the User Groups. It was a nice surprise.

Mazza558
March 15th, 2008, 06:26 PM
Nice story. I overheard a conversation between two "tech's" in my local Circuit City store that was quite funny. They were speaking of how much they dislike Windows Vista and one was like "Have you ever tried Linux?" The other man said, "Yea, but it was too hard to get working so I gave up." Then the first kid mentioned something about going to the User Group meeting! I was shocked that I found someone who knows about the User Groups. It was a nice surprise.

Yeah, it's one thing to talk to your friends about Linux, but it almost makes you jump when you overhear something so familiar to you.

MONODA
March 15th, 2008, 06:38 PM
Once I brought my laptop to school, i told some people that I was running linux.
A: Look at his laptop, it runs linux
B: what's that?
A: it's an operating system like windows and mac.
B:cool
A: yeah microsoft and apple came together and made an OS and it's free!
LOLOLOLOL i could helpbut laugh when i heard this :P

Outrunner
March 15th, 2008, 07:19 PM
According to one of my colleagues, "Linux is something new on the market and not very good yet." ](*,)

PurposeOfReason
March 15th, 2008, 07:29 PM
The only story I have was I was a best buy just messing around with a laptop that was soon to arrive in the mail and I hear someone asking why Microsoft Office 2007 won't work with their system. It was "some African linux thing" on it. (I was more concerned about how they installed it or had it not knowing what it was). The employee was actually knowledgeable enough to mention WINE (though he did call it an emulator :P) though I brought up openoffice. In the end they bought Vista. Meh, not my computer.

LaRoza
March 15th, 2008, 07:39 PM
I saw a non technical person in school using Ubuntu on her laptop.

I was talking to admissions on the phone for the school I am going to attend to get my degree (BS), and I was doing the application online. I was having trouble with the page, and mentioned it doesn't work properly in my browser (I did look at the source to determine it was the page's fault, and it was). I said I was using Opera on Linux, and she knew what Linux was (and uses it), and she used Opera for her application as well! (She went to this school). I used Firefox for this, and it didn't work well, but I eventually applied. She promised that was the only part that would be tricky for a Linux user. :)

MONODA
March 16th, 2008, 03:12 PM
i help out in the elemetary school's computer lab at my school and I saw tux paint on one of the computer, it made me smile seeing the icon on the desktop. not linux but still related.
I also saw a PE teacher's wallpaper on her computer, it was the SuSE linux lizard playing soccer and SuSE Linux written in green. It was on XP also. I am pretty sure that they thought it was some soccer team XD