OK, I need your honest opinion here.
My girlfriend needs to buy a new laptop. After checking around on the 'net, I've found a few good alternatives. However, the computer that seems best overall -- after evaluating how much you pay for the hardware you get -- is a Linux computer with Ubuntu installed.
I suggested she buy that computer, but she is quite opposed to the notion. In fact, we kinda got into an argument about it. My main point was that she shouldn't pay so much extra money for one OS, when she can get another OS that can do what she needs for free -- all she uses her computer for is listen to music, watch movies, surf the internet, and write papers for her university. If there's no gaming involved, why not go for linux?
Her points were:
1. She does not have time to learn a new OS
2. If something stops working, she can't turn it in for service, since hardly anyone will know how to fix Linux
3. There is no support for it -- you see labels with "works with Windows" all over the place, or even "works with Mac", but there's hardly ever any reference to Linux
4. If she wants to get a job, and she doesn't know how to use Vista, only Linux, they won't give it to her since "all businesses use only Windows, not Linux"
I wish to draw from your experience. What is your take on this? Have you been in a similar situation, or know of someone who has? How did it work out?
In my view, her first point should be a non-issue since she is not a poweruser like I am -- there really isn't that much new to learn if you want to listen to music and play movies, and in my experience Ubuntu is a lot easier to use for such simple tasks than, for instance, Windows Vista. I don't know about the other points, though, since she has a different way of dealing with computers than I do
I do not merely want to convert her to Linux -- I just want to give her the best deal possible. In my experience, with Vista RC1, it wasn't really a good OS. Enough was different with it from XP that transferring to either Vista or Ubuntu wouldn't make much of a difference as far as learning new things are concerned.
Should I persist in advising her to buy a Ubuntu computer? If yes, is Ubuntu the best distro for her? Or would she be better off with getting a computer with Vista installed?
I would like to see her pick Linux, but I do not want her to regret that choice later.
Also, she will move back to Russia in a few months. Which is one reason I think that choosing Linux might not be such a bad idea. Unfortunately, this also means I won't be there to offer support if something unexpected does happen.
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Originally Posted by *snip*
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