Posts tagged Linux

As a follow-up to my previous entry, An Ubuntu Experiment, I wanted to keep you updated on how my neighbors are doing with their new Ubuntu workstation. I caught up with them yesterday to discuss how things are running.

The first report was that things are going great. They’ve got everything figured out and running, they even saw that it had a firewall, but, they asked, it has no antivirus! Do they need antivirus, they wanted to know.

I explained to them that there was antivirus protection programs available, but that right now, due to the nature of Linux, it really wasn’t necessary. I explained that they should be careful of running things with which they are unfamiliar, but that viruses were unlikely to be a problem. It took some convincing.

The mother was hooked on games. They were psyched to have new games besides Freecell and Solitaire, and she enjoyed the abundance of games on the default install.

They were unable to get their video camera to work. They told me the disk that came with it didn’t work. I explained that the driver and software was for Windows, and that the camera probably worked fine. “But,” I asked, “which program were you using it with?” Blank. “Well,” I continued, “what are you trying to do?” Blank. They hadn’t really considered why they needed or wanted the camera. It just was there. We’ll revisit that with them later.

Their internet experience was complete. They got Flash installed. They got MP3s working. They understood Firefox. They were also able to get their digital camera synced.

So far, the experiment is going very well.

On Monday, my neighbor came to my house and asked me if I had a “spare Windows XP disc.” He’s not very computer savvy, but someone owed him some money and he wanted a computer so that his 15 year old daughter could access MySpace. His requirements were minimal, but he had gotten a relatively decent Dell machine – something like 1.2 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM – and it was hosed. The guy had given him a Windows 98 SE disc; they left off the actual restore disc and the drivers.

So I told him the truth – I didn’t have a copy of Windows XP I could legally give him (in truth, I don’t even have a copy of Windows XP I could illegally give him since we are PC free). I told him, if he was feeling adventurous, I could give him an operating system that had tons of programs, would likely work with no additional drivers, and was completely free and legal. So he took it. I burned him Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I told him to give the installation a shot, walk through and read everything carefully, and see what happens. If he needed help, I’d visit the next night.

But I didn’t hear from him the next day. So, Wednesday, I saw him pulling into his driveway and went out to talk to him.

Result? They successfully got Ubuntu running. They got Flash installed in Firefox. The programs that came with it were “totally sweet” and he was able to get everything figured out. It was online successfully, they had used OpenOffice.org, they had figured out Pidgin and his step-brother was in the process of backing up his files to put Ubuntu on his machine.

Maybe 2008 is the year of the Linux desktop and maybe not, but Linux is ready *now* for people who are ready for it.