Comments on: No Windows!

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:05:03 +0000

Definitely interesting. I think it’ll be nice for developers though. No more begging/tricking/pleading with people to get them to switch from this or that product. No more IE6! :-)

By: Ian

Ian — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:57:55 +0000

Another vote for not worrying about confusing “the kids” – my tween picks up whatever device is nearest and has no problem switching between windows/ubuntu/apple/mobile devices with equal facility.

It’s going to be interesting when this generation joins the job market…

By: Bernard

Bernard — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:36:10 +0000

WINE might surprise you. I got one of the lower spec Acer Aspire One’s about 15 months ago (it has 512mb RAM). I installed WINE and Lotus Notes on it. Now, given that Notes has a reputation as being slow and cumbersome on windows.. it was actually running faster on my AA1 than on my Windows Vista laptop.

I liked the form factor of the AA1, but when my 17″ powerbook started to die, I decided I would try and run linux on the cheapest laptop with a large screen I could find. I installed Mandriva on it (as I wanted to use my Windows Mobile phone as the internet connection). Again, it’s been a very impressive experience.

We’ve come a long way in a decade. I leave the Mandriva DVD in my laptop all the time. It’s just amazing to be able to pull up the package manager and choose from lots of really great software that’s free (in every sense of the word).

Give WINE a try, at least on your desktops. You might find there is an odd tweak required. And unfortunately, I can’t recommend Crossover. Every time I’ve tried to run Lotus Notes under Crossover it hasn’t worked. But in vanilla WINE it’s a champ.

By: /dev/movebo

/dev/movebo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:38:43 +0000

You’re lucky Mark, I’ve tried so hard to teach my folks how to use Ubuntu, but they are very resistant. Even after I showed’em that Linux is faster, safer, more stable and have all the software they need, they just don’t want to learn the slash address paradigm. It’s worst to me because – like Bobby said – the virus breeder turns my holiday visits in support-the-malformed-OS-visits.

PS: Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP – 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company that can’t stand 1 bit of competition.

By: john

john — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:28:50 +0000

I just bought a pink laptop from ZaReason for my wife’s birthday to replace her old windows XP laptop. As I really wanted it to make a good impression I sponsored Francois from http://www.bisigi-project.org/ to create a gnome theme to match the laptop and to add a personal touch to the gift. The theme is called Ellanna http://www.bisigi-project.org/?p=209&lang=en. She just loves it and is having no problems at all doing everything she wants to do on it. I have since switched her friends laptop over to Ubuntu 9.10 as well. Her laptop was infected by some facebook focussed virus and as she had seen my wifes laptop was keen to give Ubuntu a try so the virus infection was the final straw.

By: Mark S

Mark S — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:50:39 +0000

Pretty much going to repeat the comments stated earlier on here, I have 5 kids – ranging from 9 years to 20 months and whilst the youngest isn’t using computers (yet!) the others are all quite comfortable navigating around on the ubuntu PC they have in their room. It was Windows XP originally but that must have been about 4 releases ago now!
Can’t say I’ve noticed any problems with them and even my wife is picking up some CLI so she can kill non-responsive apps and even how to restart GDM after one particular bug we found ;-)

I’ve also converted both my parents onto Ubuntu and they both seem quite happy.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:40:09 +0000

I’ve been using Linux (Fedora) for years, but finally managed to swap out the dismally slow XP out on my wife’s laptop about 3 months ago. Since then, she’s come to love it, and wants more speed, so Puppy Linux went on and livened up an old celeron laptop into something wonderfully useful. Then, my 8 year old daughter, who took to Linux like a duck to water, asked me to dump XP on her desktop, because the ‘games are better in Linux, dad’ (frozen bubble!!). I gave her a Linux Mint CD… she installed it herself, only asking me a few questions along the way.
Here’s to a Windows free home!

By: Links 28/12/2009: Gaming Recommendations, Emacs Embracing Bazaar | Boycott Novell

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:55:28 +0000

[...] So far the netbook as been a resounding success. No Windows! [...]

By: Terrell Prude' Jr.

Terrell Prude' Jr. — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:33:18 +0000

Two years ago, I set up a few Latin American immigrant families on Kubuntu GNU/Linux. They naturally had been “accustomed” to MS Windows. Well, their high-school-age daughters took to Kubuntu like bees to honey. They’re all over Facebook, YouTube, etc. The adults seem to be fine with it also. They like that they don’t have to worry about “los virus”, and they love that they can switch between Spanish and English on the fly if they want.

My tech support “burden” has been virtually non-existent during all this time. I might’ve visited each family’s home a couple of times.

–TP

By: John Rockefeller

John Rockefeller — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:07:41 +0000

Great article :) I’m glad to see parents introducing Linux to their children before Windows. Perhaps we can look forward to a day without desktop Windows at all :)

You should keep us updated on how it’s going with her e.g., any troubles she’s run into over the months and how you overcame them.