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Moms Go Linux, And Other Windependence Winners
An anonymous reader writes "There's an entertaining article over at DesktopLinux.com entitled "Why Aren't All Our Moms Running Linux?", one of the winners of their recent wIndependence Day essay contest. From the introduction: 'Why aren't all our moms running Linux? This is a serious question, so don't laugh. I used to get phone calls about once a week, on average; it's my mom, telling me that "my computer is running out of virtual memory" or "my email keeps beeping at me" or "I can't read this document" or (the best one) "my computer is *broken*." I knew that, at the time, she was of course not running Linux. Then, one day, listening to yet another complaint, it hit me. Why aren't all our moms running Linux on their computers?" Maybe it's the cuddly Penguin logo? ;-)" They're adding the winning entries to the site week by week - I wonder how many are from Slashdot readers.
Hoyle card and board games...
Linux needs a super scrabble game then we'll get all the moms.
My mom all of a sudden asked why her computer was running better than usual and looked cooler, when I went to investigate i discovered that i had left it booted in Linux rather then windows.
_______
Death wish, n.:
The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it t
Dont you know? LESS is more than MORE :P
Join the TWIT army now!
Boy this makes no sense! I find Linux to have a steep learning curve, and I've been using computers since the 60's. Yes, I finally got mom on a computer, but there is no way I could support her on Linux.
But the big issue is why in the world does this story have a megaphone icon rather than the cuddly Penguin logo?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
As a Linux user wanting to spread The Word, I tried to get my parents interested in Linux and Open Source Software. I showed them Mandrake - all the cute little icons and the cool games and screensavers. Since they dont do much other than web-surfing (mainly reading email thru a web interface), it seemed like a natural choice.
Then, I made the mistake of showing my mother a Gentoo Linux install - a screenfull of bizzare and verbose gcc flags scrolling across a text console. She became frightened and intimidated. I tried to explain to her that all I did was type 2 words, "emerge gnome", and that it was nothing to be scared of - and I tried to explain the process. Now, shes afraid to try Linux - and everyone I try to recommend Linux to gets scared off by her proclamations of how "difficult" it is.
*sigh* Oh well.....who was it that said "GUIs are like diapers - everyone grows out of them eventually".
I put Mandrake on my grandmas a while ago. It works great for her needs...web, e-mail, word processing, printer support, and a load of games that come with kde/gnome/etc that are great for the kids when they come over...
---
Always standing, I am a tree awaiting the lightning. -Samael, Crown
I set up a box for my mom to use. She's a teacher, she types papers, prints them out; occasionally browses the web; and checks email about once a week (now that she can). The box runs Linux.
For awhile, I had her running KDE, but the box was as Celery 400 or so with 128MB of RAM, and KDE 2.x is a dog for performance. So I switched her over to ROX (RiscOS On X) and sawfish with a pretty theme (much like one I use).
She has icons for printing, trash, logging in, and OpenOffice, in addition to folders for her documents and public_html (which I explained to her was the place to put documents she wanted to share, so my Windows-using dad had a way to get at them). It works great. She loves it. I can modify it remotely. It doesn't break. It runs Linux.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
My wife uses Linux... Does that count? She's patient, still raising me -- kids are all older.
My mom's 83 years old. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what a computer's for... She uses phrases like, "New fangled notion!". Anyone know what that means?
After all, what do moms like to do more than decorate, re-decorate, un-decorate, and re-decorate again their houses? Then there's the endless re-organizing, bed-making, cloth-folding, cloth-ironing, vacuuming, etc etc etc.
It makes perfect sense that moms would like Linux. After, what other OS can they re-decorate the GUI as much in? What other OS could they order and re-order things in so much?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I started off with the Redmond theme & window decorations, so that they would at least feel a little comfortable. I removed the Console from the kicker, and put up a minimum icon set on the Desktop:
I taught them how to log in, and they were pretty much set from there. They had access to everything they needed on the desktop, and had no problem figuring it out. Since I configured everything for them, they didn't have to worry about the guts of the OS, and since they really only browse the web and check email, they don't need to install software or anything else. Eventually I moved their window decorations away from the Redmond theme, so that they wouldn't confuse it for Windows; I still think it was a good beginner decision though.
Basically it came down to me asking "Why DO they need Windows?" one night, when my one sister asked me if she should buy XP. First I shuddered at the thought of her using XP, then I realized she really doesn't NEED it! And when I told her that her own copy of SuSE 8.0 would only cost $40, she was thrilled. (Yes, I had her buy a copy, I wanted to support SuSE. Besides, they each liked the idea of having a manual just in case). Let's face it though, for a lot of people, Linux does exactly what they need it to do. We just need to make it even easier so that they can set it up for themselves. And we as a community are getting there.
In the mean time, give your Mom Linux, and save yourself and her a headache
If she's running Windows {3.1, 95, 98, ME} then show her a DOS window or put her into dos by hitting F8 when it starts up.
Then show her Linux. Let her decide which is easier.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
She's 79 and has difficulty from time to time, but it really helps that I can ssh in.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually, his article makes sense. Linux does make sense for the user who can't do anything other than basic office tasks on their computer, as well as for the serious computer professional. The real hurdles to linux on the desktop are the modestly proficient users (such as myself). We can install and remove programs, update drivers, and do basic to advanced hardware ugrades. What we are *not* is programmers or IT guys/gals.
The biggest problem for linux among this group is the loss of power/control on switching over to linux. I tried Suse 8.0 w/ KDE 3.0 in the last half of June. While I could do basic office tasks, it was unnerving not knowing exactly what was going on with my OS -- yes I read the books, yes I'm smart, but I'm not a programmer/IT professional. Tried to install Mozilla and spent two hours feeling like a total tool. In the end, having to run to linuxnewbie.org or some other site anytime I wanted to do something other than word process or surf got to me. I backed-up the handful of documents I'd created, reformatted, and went back to 98se.
Not sure what the solution is. But that's my two cents on the problem.
Why would your mom want to recompile a kernel? As for installing RPMs, KDE makes that a 1 click procedure, you don't even have to download anything. With Konqueror, if you click a link the KDE rpm package manager installs it for you.
What my mom can't handle is downloading something , finding it, and installing it.
Linux's core might be hard to use, but KDE/Gnome isn't.
I'm not sure how parent's FUD got modded up.
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
I want you all to know that my mom DOES use linux. I setup the sytstem for her, and she doesn't have much of a choice ;)
I don't think she has any issues with it particularly related to linux either. All she does is use Mozilla and OpenOffice, so the differences are minimal. Except for the crashing. None of that.
--
grep "xercist"
would you prefer to have a two hour telephone support call from your mom, or a 10 minute SSH session to fix your mom's computer long distance. ask yourself that question before you ask yourself why your Mom is using Windows.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
" Look, my mom has trouble with Excel. You think she'd be able to run Linux? You think she'd be able to build a kernel module? Even install an RPM package?"
:) Linux window managers should stop emulating MS Windows so damned much. I use the command line, and the computer semi-illiterate don't know how to use MS Windows anyway.
Right. So here's the deal. My parents have installed two software packages intentionally in the entire lifetime of their latest computer which runs Windows 98 or XP or 2K or what-fucking-ever (a couple years). Their installs were roughly as simple as Mozilla's Linux installer, interestingly enough. Any other software on the box either came there, or trojaned itself on (Gator et. al.).
They don't change their video resolution. They don't create new shortcuts. They fire up the box, click on one of about 5 icons, use the program, and close it. Sometimes they switch between programs. When they need to do something more difficult (send e-mail attachments, open an unrecognized file extension in a particular program, etc.), they ask me or someone else who knows more about computers.
So, if they were using Linux instead of Windows, and the two programs had installers as sophisticated as Mozilla's (a faulty assumption, so assume they just asked me to install 'em while I was in town), what would be the difference? The difference would be they wouldn't have Gator, and that's about it.
Is there a reason for them to switch to Linux, given they already have something that basically works? No. Would they get anything extra out of it? No. But Linux wouldn't be any more difficult for them than Windows already is.
Interestingly, though I meant for this argument to be pro-Linux, it looks a lot more pro-Mac.
My parents called me up a few months ago and asked me to find a new computer for them - their old Pentium 100 running Win95 finally died.
I told them that I could put together a system for them, but that it would not include Windows and they seemed to be open to that idea. Basically all they need to do is email, web surfing and some word processing so I figured that Linux was ready.
I put Lycoris on their new box and delivered it to them a month ago - so far it's working fine for them.
Now, of course they want to hook up their digital camera and an all-in-one scanner/printer, so there could be some challenges ahead.
However, if your computer-challenged parent just needs to connect to the net, send email, surf and do some simple word processing, I don't see why they can't use Linux at this point.
--don't panic
My computer find the swap partition
What? Hu? Who? Nevermind.
Mozilla works fine with hotmail (for now) except for a few odd things, like the select all messages checkbox doesn't work. Give her mozilla on windows first, see if she can get used to it.
I can't read any Word
OpenOffice
Excel
diddo
PowerPoint
StarOffice does this, I'm pretty sure openoffice does to, but I won't swear on it.
"...So, I am here to finally tell the moms of the world: you can trash the default operating system, replace it with Linux, and have the full power and reach of your computer, finally, in your hands..."
But this is a bad thing. Many people don't want "the full power and reach of your computer". They want to email their friends, surf the web, do a little word processing, play MP3s, take the red-eye out of their digital photos. Giving them the full power of the computer doesn't give them any of this. They want a machine that does a few things well, not one that makes eveything possible.
These applications are of course made possible because underneath is the full power of the computer. But most users only care about a few specific applications. Linux is a very, very good OS if you care about accessing the core features of the computer; having real control over it. It isn't (yet) the best choice if you want to do just a few things well, partly because it doesn't yet have the range of applications and partly because it still doesn't have a consumer UI.
A consumer UI is not just about how easy it is to do some things (some of the Linux desktops like KDE are getting closer to this goal). Its also about not being able to do some things. A good consumer OS should do a lot of the underlying information management that Linux exposes. Consumers don't want to have to understand the implications of - for example - a UNIX-style filesystem layout in order to get their work done.
Sailing over the event horizon
If your Mom runs, say, Windows 98, what happens when she needs something fixed? She calls you. You drive over to her house. You muck about with your computer while she asks you when you're finally going to graduate from college or how long it's going to be until she has grandkids.
A Linux install and SSH saves both of you time and effort. For example:
Mom: "Something's wrong. I got an instant message link in my e-mail and it won't work."
You (typing in background): "Got it. It's already fixed!"
Mom: "So when are you --"
You: "Oops! Pizza's here gottago loveya bye!"
I'm gonna get my Mom using Linux this year.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Situation: Mom needed computer w/net access. Mac would have been nice as that's what she's always used and knows. But the only Macs I had were 68040 based machines. Problem: Mom uses AOL (arrgh), and AOL's webmail client (which she likes, don't ask me why) uses funky java stuff which the old Mac OS browsers can't handle. Solution: Mom got an old Toshiba PII/166 laptop running Mandrake. I set it up to boot directly into the GUI (Gnome), dial PacBell, launch Netscape, and open the AOL webmail page. On the lower tool bar is a plunger icon-pressing it shuts down the machine. That's all the thing does, and she just barely manages to use it. Most recent problem: Netscape froze up, for whatever reason. Her solution: unplug computer, close lid. 2 days later she calls, "it's stuck, and every time I turn it back on it's still on the same page! What do I do?" What happened-everytime she closed the lid it happily went into sleep mode, and conserved battery power... Concepts such as cntrl-alt-backspace or cntrl-alt-delete are WAY too dificult for her, let alone opening a terminal window, finding the Netscape process, and a nice kill -9.
ehintz
and even *I* don't feel like using linux anymore.
Your answer boils down to a single, simple answer... Linux is far too complicated.
Oh don't believe me? here's my list of top pet peeves...
- APM support never became fully function or free
of administration issues so lets not even
talk about ACPI functionality. So all of
you with laptops probably have at least
as many suspend/power management problems
as I have.
- I find the configuration and implementation
of linux's network interface a complicated and
bug ridden process. For instance why after
coming out of suspend does my wireless MiniPCI
interface not come back up until I restart the
PCMCIA subsystem?
- hardware support... HAHAHAHAHA! try
building in kernel support for just about
anything. Look at the "help" and all you will
find is tons, and tons, and tons of options
or caveats all different depending on your
hardware. You'll find lots of links to "if you
want this you will also need to get tools
from yada.yada.yada...". And this is even
assuming you *know* what hardware you actually
have. "Some laptops have buggy BIOS. enable
this if you laptop crashes instead of
suspending". That's great advice. Which laptops
have this problem; exactly? And, even if you
know, the thought of "crashing" isn't going
to induce any positive perspectives of linux
anytime soon.
If you give me enough time I can certainly come up with an almost endless list and I haven't even begun to touch upon topics such as lack of marketing presence or issues concerning the horrible integration of highly disjointed projects. (How many sound "architectures" do we have, at least two. How many printing systems? how many pcmcia projects? How many web browsers?) I'll agree to arguments that each project has its benefits but your mother won't care. Even I'm past caring. I'm more interested in something that works with out consuming hours of my week adminstering the machine's operating system.It boils down to this... I buy a machine and I can put Windows XP on it and it takes me a *total* of two hours after which *everything* on the machine functions and I didn't have to know or choose any options at all. I can choose from a selection of thousands of fully functional software application and all the latest games and entertainment.
If I put linux on the machine it takes me three months to get the MiniPCI wireless network card working at all and after half a year I still don't have support for the modem in the machine [Dell Inspiron 4100].
I figure this post will generate all sorts of "ACPI does work if you do..." or "your PCMCIA doesn't come up because this script on your machine is broken..." or "It works on my machine." But this will only prove my point...
Answer: Your mother doesn't use linux because its too complicated.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
for the same reason most people aren't running linux...
AOL hasn't put out an instructional video on how to run it.
Laugh or call me a troll all you want, but the there's really no one to teach it to them (at simple fact of the matter is that most moms aren't going to get off their duffs and use linux because they don't want to have to learn it, and least not hold their hands all the way through it).
For a lot of linux users, the computer is the means and the end. The same can't be said for our mammas.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
My plan is: Each time my mom calls with a tech question for her PC, I time the call, and ask her to put $(minutes) into a cookie jar. When she has $1300, I'll tell her to use it to get an LCD iMac.
Kevin Fox
A Linux install and SSH saves both of you time and effort. For example:
...two hours later...
You: ok mom. i need you to bring up a shell so i can grab your IP.
Mom: a what? oh...you mean like that C:> prompt?
You: yeah mom. just click...etc.
Mom: is that a right click? where am i clicking again? oh..on the icon down at the bottom? Which mouse button should I use?
You: ok. now that you have a terminal up. i need you to type in ifconfig.
Mom: what's "effconfig?" should I be typing that by the squiggly line? here. lemme...oops. i clicked on something else. hang on....(hand to phone) It's in the cabinet, dear. No, the other side! I'll HELP YOU IN A MINUTE!! I'M ON THE PHONE!!! (phone back to ear)...ok. now what did you need me to type?
You: ifconfig. I-F-C-O-N-F-I-G.
Mom: ok...what was after that first I?
You: F
Mom: ok...F. oh poo! I just typed a G. how do i cancel this? oh wait..wait...hey. what's this uppy arrow plus H mean?
You: (your mom hears the sound of a gunshot)
Mom: honey? honey, are you there? what about my email? honey?
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The original essay cited above ends with our protagonist having installed Debian for his Mom. I say, so what?
If you want some real insight into why Mom isn't using Linux, first of all he should have made Mom do the install. He says:
I felt like a chicken pecking my way through all the defaults until I finally had all the packages copied over (took about twenty minutes of installing to get to the point of a login prompt). A few more commands brought down security updates, the X Window System, as well as a few applications I knew my mom would need.
Twenty minutes? How long would it have taken Mom? Pecking chicken? How many of those "pecks" were to answer arcane config questions that Mom wouldn't know the answer to? Command prompt? Please.
This right here is the first reason Mom isn't using Linux.
And even granting him that Mom might be happy on the new OS, I need to hear about her experiences in the new environment to have any opinion. Did she get any strange error messages? What happens when her friends give her programs she can't use? Can she find online help written in plain language to solve her own problems? (even today, these are questions that should be asked of any OS.) For a pro-Mom-on-Linux article, so strange that it ended without Mom using Linux! I hope there's a follow-up I'm missing, because that would contain the real answers to the title's question.
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
More likely your mother is "complaining" about her computer just to spend time with her son/daughter. And using your abilities as a technical guru as a way to breach conversations and contact with you. I know plenty of parents that do that.
While it's great to think your mom will stop calling when they get Linux on their machine, that will never happen. They'll just think of something else to call you about. You can't get rid of mothers, they love you.
Joseph Elwell.
So far I have read about 40 comments saying:
"My Mom *does* run linux....cause I set it up for her."
Exactly. She didn't do it, you did. And until that changes, the why doesn't my mom run linux argument won't change either.
remember, this is a tech site, so of course your mom might run linux, if she is tech savvy or has a son or daughter that is and sets it up for them. Can you say that the majority of moms out there have tech savvy children? Probably not, and 's the issue.
Sent from your iPad.
Then around Christmas, she got some nasty virus and I had to reload her system. This time I decided she wasn't going to get any more virii, so I installed linux as the primary OS, and installed win4lin that she could use within linux as a crutch if she needed one. She previously did all of her email from netscape 4, so it was easy to switch her to netscape 6 on linux. I frequently evangelize all the benefits of linux, and warn her of the nasty things MS is trying to do to their customers, this helps keep the positive idea of her running linux.
The funny thing is, she's had a lot fewer problems now. Her computer works more consistantly, and I haven't gotten a call for help for months. It was a little rocky at first as she tried to adapt to the changes, but I was able to log in remotely to inspect her system and diagnose any problems. Try doing that with Windows.
All in all, she's quite happy with her system. She can use all the programs she's used to, her computer is a lot more stable, and she doesn't have to worry about virii.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
When my friend told me he was ready to get his first computer (he's 50), I set him up with Windows. I'm heavily biased towards *nix, but at the time, we were interested in an online racing game that was Windows only. Vnc for windows came in real handy for showing him how to navigate usenet, manage email, etc.
After about 10 months, his computer was infected with spyware, broken media players, fubar registry entries and the like.
I reinstalled his Windows, added Mandrake 8.2 and showed him the ropes via x0rfbserver the same way i had done with Windows. No big deal. He had Windows. Now he's got both. He uses Linux.
Without the remote desktop function it would have been a nightmare to give good instructions for either OS.
A slight nitpick from even a devout linux user -- you can 'easily' remotely admin a windows box with pcanywhere ($$$) or tightvnc...just a thought as I see lots of comments mentioning remote administation...
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
They use Mozilla for both web browsing and email, and AbiWord for simple word-processing. That all runs just fast enough with GNOME, on an old 166Mhz Cyrix box with 64MB of memory. This setup does 95% of what they want, and if I can get the printer working it will probably be 98%.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
someone threw me into the pool, and it was either swim, or sink. and since im still here typing...
the point is my father did his bi weekly toast of windows and never botherd to put it back on. he runs redhat 7.2 on his dual proccesor p3 machine. he's got 10 uw-scsi2 drives in a software raid.
do you want to guess who 'breaks' the machine more? my mother or my father? same person as always, my father, the unix systems administration man. now i know there are some key differences but still....
my mother checks her email(netscape 6.2) she helps us kids with our resumes (soffice 5.2) she does powerpoint presentations (soffice again) she prints with the hp printer(812). browses the web with a cable connection quite efficently. my mother is by no means a pro. i dont think she (even if she had permission to) could install an rpm not to mention she NEVER touches the console.(before i forget she uses gnome)
the two big things that stick out in my mind.. the only time she has a problem is when the cable service cuts out.. (cable co problem) and she has never, ever said "Linux doesnt work for me because it doesnt look as pretty as windows"
linux works for my mother and thats all she cares about.
enough cop outs about the way it looks, most old people care about functionality, they want to do this this and this, they dont care how, as long as its simple and stable. My father just happens to have it setup that way.
so all your windows users are going ha! she has to have it setup this way! now how many of your parents and grandparents ask you to show them how to do this that and the other thing? all of them! so why not just make the process more stable?
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
The trick to having your mom run Linux is to maintain her machine yourself. Of course, it depends on what your mom wants to run. My family isn't really big on the popular computer games, so CrossOver covers almost all of our Windows needs anyway. YRMV.
You assume that she would be using a computer at all if I hadn't set one up for her. She only uses it because I made it do exactly what she wants, and she has someone to complain to when it stops doing what she wants. If I'm the one setting it up anyway, why should I use anything else? I'm sure that goes for lots of people here.
I know plenty of families who also go out, buy a computer, and use it as an expensive paperweight, simply because they don't really know how to use it or make it work for them. If I set up Linux for these people, does it "not count" because they didn't set it up?
OK, first the issue was that I was tech-savvy, now the issue is that lots of people aren't?
In any case, people should be tech savvy. Hello, you're all living in a technological world, and it's just going to keep getting more technological (barring natural disaster or war). Ignorance is not OK, folks. Just because you don't know how do use a computer doesn't mean you can't learn. It especially does not mean that you shouldn't have to learn.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Did you check the link or just copy and paste?
I may be an idiot (which is quite possible) but the link you found in an amazing 0.22 second (God your mom must be proud) is tools to help someone play scrabble. My mother doesn't want to increase her ability to play scrabble. She wants to play it. She wants to double click on the icon that is on the desktop (it's on the desktop since it's on of the three items ever used) and play scrabble.
And the final note, whatever scrabble game you'd find for linux might the the most amazing thing in the world but it's missing one thing. It's not Hoyle. It doesn't matter.
Another note: Linux games often (there are quite a few exception) don't look as good as their Windows counter parts. Find me a Linux Risk game that looks as good as Hasbro's Risk II (http://pc.ign.com/previews/13205.html is a good review).
Think of it this way before getting your panties in a bunch -- someone may go into a car dealership and ask for a yellow honda civic, you being the prick you are tell them that statistically white cars get in fewer accidents (it's true btw). The customer would look at you, they don't give a fuck - they what a yellow car because it's cute - it looks good.
> But don`t blame Linux for your being too lazy .
I don't blame Linux, I use Linux myself. My father couldn't set it up though and even if he did he couldn't go into Future Shop and buy a decent card, board or word game for his Linux system. He doesn't spend hours on end on the internet. He uses as a tool, not as a replacement for the lack of girlfriend that so many people here do.
Yeah, I guess you could consider me lazy - I could just write the scrabble game myself but I do have better things to do with my time. I'm not sure if many people (like yourself) get one thing. Most people use a computer like a TV. They don't want to build it from the ground up, they don't want to be a leet h4x0r. They use it for e-mail, a couple simple games and likely shut it off when not in use (so uptime as a penis measuring contest is pointless). The rest of the time these people are doing other things...going out with friends (not to LAN parties), raising their kids, going to their jobs or possibly reading a good book.
Thanks for the comment though...
What kind of a dumb question is this? If your mom claims her computer is 'broken' on a Windows machine, how do you think she's going to understand the more complicated world of Linux?
void women (int money, time_t time);
With Konqueror, if you click a link the KDE rpm package manager installs it for you.
Funny, mine ALWAYS prompts me for a stupid 'root password'. I can't do anything productive with the system without constantly rekeying the root password, yet Lunix dogmatics would either laugh at you or verbally abuse you if you simply ran a desktop session as root the entire time.
Sorry, it's still not that easy.
creation science book
I'm going to get her a new phone before I get her a new PC. Have you ever tried talking someone through the menus on a 5-year-old phone *while they're trying to talk to you on it*? It's a really old Nokia, with menus *just* sufficiently different from modern ones to make it tricky... She likes it because the screen's got big easy-to-read characters instead of the fiddly wee screens you get now, though.
on iBooks and WLAN, no string attached, and the base station do ADSL to the ISP. Though sometimes apps do suddenly quit themselves, the iBooks were never rebooted (except during those upgrade moments).
:-(
:-))
The tech support issues with Windoze are too big a workload for me as a free consultant, Linux on the other hand is too user-unfriendly for a layman. I have tried to give them Gnome on Linux, but they did end up only able to use Netscape and not even a decent mail app with consistency UI is availbale, you could call them stupid but they are old! So Linux is out of the question.
Now they are happy to use the Macs and are able to use quite a few apps and even to produce their own travel documentaries on video (only that their iBooks can't burn DVDs
We are all impressed on what the Macs are capable to bring to these old folks when they hardly known what a CPU is and can't make sense of the difference between a harddisk and their favorite Pink Floyd CD (because I have the CD saved to MP3 on their hd, and that confused them so much
Not to mention I don't have to troubleshoot over the phone with a 90 years old fustrated woman.
Not that the Macs are perfect, there are still a lot of room to improve especially on speech recognition and user-friendliness, but current, if you need stability plus user-friendliness (perhaps also multilingual 'coz my dad and mom also use Chinese), Mac (OS X, NOT OS9! )is almost the only choice.
---
Sic? What sic?
I will often see Linux posts go something like this:
"My Mom/Grandma/Dad/Uncle now uses Linux, I set it all up for her/him, and she has icons for this, this and this"
Great, you are obviously capable of setting up a nice Linux setup, but your Mom is now dependant on you for everything regarding the way things are set up, all the way down to the software installed. Now, I wouldn't expect most inexperienced users to be tinkering with their setups - most shouldn't. But putting a user down in front of their machine and giving them virtually no control over anything, is a bit bothersome to me.
Having someone rely on you for every single configuration issue is not what I would consider polite, or something that will improve the fortunes of Linux or whatever.
You may use Linux because it works for you. Giving someone a Linux setup that they haven't the most basic understanding of is just boosting your own ego. "Look at MY platform. Even MY MOM can use it."
God forbid she want to install a simple Solitare program on her own.
Install a new piece of hardware (Inexperienced users may not be tweaking their config files, but they _do_ love their peripherals).
Or anything else.
They shouldn't have to rely on someone else for everything. Lots of inexperienced users figure things out on their own, sometimes with hillarious or disasterous results, but they do, because they want to learn, or at least be able to have a mesure of control over their own system.
She has an old iMac running MacOS 9.1. It works, it's stable, and it's virus-free (she gloats about that to her Wintel friends all the time). She's a reasonably competent user and wonders why anyone ever uses Windows. She hates it.
And she is seriously considering a flat-panel iMac because she thinks they look cool and she likes OS X.
So she's got no interest at all in running Linux, but she's not a Windows drone by any means. And at least MacOS X is a Unix at heart. She won't be hanging around the CLI like I do, but she'll be a Unix user soon enough.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I had no interest in trying to support a Windows PeeCee from 800 miles away, so I spent the bucks on the [overpriced] touchpad. I think it was worth it, because the damn thing just works, day after day, and I don't have to worry about Outlook viruses, IE security holes, or *shudder* Windows Update.
One simple rule for its versus it's
There is no way that anyone with the computing skills of your mom (i.e., none) can hope to get Linux into a state where they can do anything they consider useful with it.
Not without copious outside assistance and an assurance that if they type the wrong thing they'll only destroy their own computer.
--Blair
Honestly, the lack of certain kinds of software for Linux has kept me from setting it up on my parents' PC.
1. My mom, like most mothers I know, is very interested in creating greeting cards and thank-you notes on a color inkjet printer. I have yet to see a single greeting-card maker program for Linux. (Did anyone ever write one of these yet? Maybe sort of a Broderbund "Print Shop" clone, even?) Even if a free open-source card-maker is available, what kind of card artwork comes with it? For under $25, you can buy one of several Windows-based greeting card programs that come with a CD full of commercially-designed cards from respected companies like Hallmark or American Greetings. I'm not sure some Linux guru is going to be able to match that artistic quality in his/her spare time as a freeware project....
2. My folks also do a lot of family research. So far, I haven't seen a single package better than Broderbund's "Family Tree Maker" for their needs. Again, this puppy isn't available in a Linux version. I'm sure Linux has a number of geneology packages for it - but honestly, I don't think any are as user-friendly or comprehensive as "Family Tree Maker".
3. There's a real lack of children's educational software for Linux. I have yet to see any commercial Linux offerings from any of the people who own the rights to the characters children like and relate to. (Disney learning titles, Dr. Seuss, the Bernstein Bears, Sesame Street, etc.) My parents want their youngest child to be able to play learning games on their PC sometimes, and expect it to handle whatever discount title they pick up at the local Best Buy store.
StarOffice and KDE/Gnome + internet apps are a teriffic "core" -- but until some of these other software gaps get filled, Linux isn't ready for many "family PCs".
So, she now has a Mac running OSX. It's roughly as stable as Linux. It's about as easy to use as Gnome or KDE (not worse but not better either), and a lot nicer than Windows. If there is one thing that's worse it's that my mother finds a lot less software for the Mac that she likes than for Linux.
On the other hand, she can now go out and buy a piece of hardware or software, asking for something that is "Mac OSX compatible" and she can get books that are aimed at non-technical users. Also, the Apple brand name stands for pretty consistently decent hardware, whereas with PCs, finding good hardware is a gamble even if you buy a brand name.
So, consider getting your mother a Macintosh. Technically, it is really no better and no worse than Linux, but Apple's market presence and the support infrastructure around it makes it useful for non-technical users. As long as they remain mostly UNIX/Linux-compatible and don't do something really stupid in their relationship with the open source community, I think they are a decent choice.
/sbin/ifconfig|grep "inet addr">/tmp/ipoutput /tmp/ipoutput 5 70 /tmp/ipoutput
:-)
gdialog --textbox
rm
# End of script
Then you say "Mom just read what it says on the screen......"
Of course if her problem is getting online in the first place then this will be less than helpful. Be sure you set that up correctly!
Oh yeah, install gdialog while you're at it.
I know; I know; it's very quick and verrrry dirty but I'm not going to play with sed to make it look pretty just so I get an extra karma point.
ps. The lameness filter screws it up if I put in the #!/bin/bash like I'm supposed to. Grrrrr!
Let's all admit right off the bat that Linux has very little desktop presence.
Let's further admit right up front that it's slow penetration into this area isn't due to price.
We might discuss reasons like the evil business practices of Microsoft. We all know how they have in the past used every legal and some illigal means of preventing OEMs from bundling competitors software. I think we all understand the implications for Linux in regards to those business practices.
But still. Don't you think there is another reason why Linux has very little presence on the deskop? It's just plain not fit for consumer...well, consumer consumption. It's just not good enough in that regard. At least not yet.
Having arrived at this conclusion, I ask myself "why?" One very important answer comes to mind: Linux developers and users (and there's hardly a difference, really) don't want it to become a consumer-ized product. They want, rather, the consumer to become a Linux-nerd. Think I'm exaggerating? A prime example can be had in a comment just a few inches above this one - "GUIs are like diapers - everyone outgrows them eventually."
It is this sentiment that is preventing Linux from moving into the deskop market. Gates' sly dealings with OEMs notwithstanding...I think it's time to admit some of the problem is Linux itself. And the responsibility for that lies squarely at the feet of it's developers.
I've made this prediction time and time again in these forums and here I go one more time - "One day someone will make a Linux distro that truly is consumer-oriented. That distro will be universally hated by the existing Linux community."
Linux will be forever a server OS and a geek-toy until and unless this changes.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I told my wife: "Windows is something they torture me with at work and I'm not putting up with it here. You want Windows? That's fine but when it breaks I'm not fixing it." To her credit, she is intelligent enough to grasp the concept of things like "spyware", "EULA", "copy prevention" and be offended by them. It really wasn't a hard sell. We run Debian now.
She complained about the spams we've been getting lately so I added Spamassassin to the machine. That won a few points for me too.
Interestingly, though I meant for this argument to be pro-Linux, it looks a lot more pro-Mac. :) Linux window managers should stop emulating MS Windows so damned much. I use the command line, and the computer semi-illiterate don't know how to use MS Windows anyway.
You know, that's a really good point. I've been lusting after a mac, but just can't afford one (to the specs I would want). Currently I'm running Mandrake w/ KDE, but I'm really not completely satisfied with it. And the main reason I want a Mac is for the OS. If there was a distro (or whatever) that mimics MacOSX, I'd use it in a heartbeat.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
is the day i pack them off to the local Lizard Ranch (aka retirement home). I despise AOL with a passion. Between the credit card fraud they inflict on their customers (aka billing after an account is canceled), their cynical marketing of AOL as a child safe isp when in fact AOL is the one of the largest child molester in existance. Any self respecting geek should forbid family members from using AOL.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
It only took four calls to get that installed. And now that he has MS Flight Combat Simulator, all hope of installing Linux on my parents' overpowered machine have gone up with the proverbial blue smoke.
-Scott Hutton
Let's see. My money's on the devil.
Why even do that much?
Use one of those nice temp dns services, and you just ssh to mymom.dyndns.org or something like that. Check out www.dyndns.org and see what they offer.
Set up a script on the linux box that updates the dyndns entry every time it connects, and you don't even have to ask mom to read anything off the screen. And you don't ahve to worry about your own typos when she reads the numbers out either.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
This is quite possible, especially for a pre-installed system sold through a mass-market retailer. You know what the hardware is, and add-ons will be USB or FireWire. Few users will ever open the box. That's all you really have to support in those low-end Linux boxes.
Maybe it's because Linux is harder to use and much less useful for most people than windows.
Sig is taking a break!
Now, of course they want to hook up their digital camera and an all-in-one scanner/printer, so there could be some challenges ahead.
... one thing about Free Software is that 5 year old peripheral will still be supported, years after Microsoft has dumped all support of it on their OS).
... in fact she has come to detest her Windows box at work). She uses openoffice, mozilla, kmail, xmms, and isn't afraind to type a few commands I wrote down for her at the command line when she wants to watch a movie using mplayer.
Their scanner may or may not work, but their digital camera should be just fine. It is important that they know not to go buying hardware until they are certain it works with Linux...they wouldn't buy a Mac scanner and expect it to work with windows (indeed, they wouldn't by an older, used scanner and expect it to work with the current crop of windows XP would they
gphoto2
Also, if you find they want to hook up an ieee1394 video camera, that will work as well (ieee1384 drivers, dvgrab or, better yet, kino).
My mom is also running GNU/Linux (and loves it
Most of our parents who dealt with computers at all prior to 1995 had to contend with DOS at one time or another, so if they are made aware that the occasional criptic command is available if they need it (but not required if they prefer using a GUI), and you're willing to sit down with them, show them how it works, and write down the command they need to use, all but the illiterate of the illiterate will be fairly comfortable with that.
Add to that the lack of worms, viruses, crashes, and unpredictable, erratic behavior that so plagues microsoft platforms and you end up with a very happy camper indeed.
Being able to fix any issues in 5 minutes via an ssh link, rather than spending an hour on the phone talking them through a cranky winddows gui to fix their video (or whatever) doesn't hurt either. In fact, I haven't had a call for help in almost a year...because her system just plains works, day in and day out.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I agree.
My mom won't use Linux. She's finally gotten a good grasp on Outlook, has loads of Actual Applications that are Windows based for the business she's in. She takes her laptop to work and docks it into her network. It all works for her.
This essay was by someone who seems to have A) a mom with a lot of free time and minimal computing requirements, and B) plenty of their own free time to babysit their mom's OS.
The thought of putting my mom on Linux is insane. Crap articles like this are truly inane, irrational, clearly the work of someone with very little insight into the real world of users and users habits.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
"Why Linux isn't ready for the desktop" by Ilan Volow
Case in point:
I was at a restaurant with some of my lug members. I won't name names, the city, or any specifics (so I don't have to pay the price of my criticism at next week's meeting). In my home town, there is a very, very big linux distribution company. Everyone has heard of its distribution and many, many people use it. There are a number of programmers who work at this company who are also lug members, and at the restaurant, I got into a discussion with one of them about the distribution's installer and why I thought its UI was so poorly designed (after the conversation, I found out he wrote most of it. Boy, I felt stupid). Now, this installer is revered by many to be easy enough for your grandmother to use, but I counted a good 15 or 20 usability errors.
As a little bit of background, I as studying to be a UI designer (and a damned good one at that). I can give you the professional opinion that many of these errors involve simple, "duh" kind of stuff. The problems were things like ambiguously labeled check boxes and radio buttons. Or widgets laid out in ways that users do not naturally progress in. In some of the worst cases, the widget layout conveyed information so badly that it could confuse a user into not being able to start up in X (very important for newbies and secretaries). The most annoying error was a modal dialog that obscured information outside the dialog that was pertinant to making choices inside the dialog. The only way to refer to the information outside the dialog was to close the dialog, look at the information, and then re-enter it. All these problems are things that would be easy to change (just modifying/adding 300 lines of code at max). And making these changes would not involve creating stupid talking paperclip avatars or wizards that insult the intelligence of power-users and inhibit their progress. Making these changes would simply add greater clarity to performing the procedures involved in installation, and would allow both power user and grandma to navigate more efficiently and effectively. Real Ease-Of-Use (as opposed to Microsoft Ease-of-Use) is not about wiping the user's ass, it's about not kicking it. But despite the ease of changing the UI code and the benefits it would bring, I seriously doubt this linux distribution company will ever see these problems as problems and make the necessary changes. And I'm certain the programmer I talked to probably wouldn't, either. And probably no one in the linux community will step forward and make the changes, since they all think this distribution's installer is the greatest thing since sliced bread just because it's graphical. And because they can use their linux expertise to get around the most confusing parts of this installer's UI.
Back to my conversation with the guy who wrote the installer, when I mentioned several of the problems I listed above, he still couldn't understand what was wrong with it. "You don't think it's pretty enough?" he asked. I think that moment, more than anything else, defines why Linux just isn't making as much progress on the desktop as it should be.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I'd say Linux is perfect for moms. Why?
./configure && make install.
/, but I doubt they will even try).
1. You can setup a Linux installation for them. They don't have to install it themselves. Remove all icons and put a few icons on the desktop/panel. That's all they'll use.
2. Moms and dads (and grandmothers) don't install software. They just use what's installed already. So they won't get in trouble with RPMs and
3. The permissions ensure that they can't mess with the system, so the computer will never break (unless they find out how to use the root password to get into a console and do rm -Rf
All the common "Linux is not ready for the desktop"-arguments do not apply here. Mom doesn't use the Control Panel, she doesn't care about the resolution, she doesn't install software, etc.
I put my parents behind Linux. All they do is browse the Internet anyway. So I made a password-less account for them and when they doubleclick on their icon in gdm, Galeon and sawfish launch automatically. If I put them in Windows, they will get confused by the start menu and the icons on the desktop and the tray.
"I'm surprised noone as modded you as "troll" yet."
He wasn't modded down as troll because he's right. Why would she install RPMs? Why WOULDN'T she? Face it, you build your mom a Linux box, and she's stuck with whatever you gave her. She cannot go to the store and buy new apps. At best she could get them on-line. So either she learns how to do RPM's, or she doesn't add anything to her computer.
Haven't you noticed all the times people have to use the phrase "All she really needs..." in order to explain their ability to use Linux as her OS? Don't you see a problem with that?
- Why are there 6 programs that do the same thing?
- Why does it keep asking for my root password?
- Why is there no sound?
- Why can't I find anything at the store for my computer?
- Why don't the websites I visit look right?
Just curious.
You really don't want to have to explain 'Enter root password' and ask which device is the problem after a power failure (yes, it's not hard, but it gives a bad impression).
Apple truly does make their machines and OS extremely easy to use for a beginner. An OSX user never has to see the console or a command line. The hardware is of generally very good quality (my old powertbook has been running for three years now without one problem ever.).
And how hard is that? Fire up red-carpet, click subscribe on the channel you want, mark the software she wants and click install...
Or download it and double-click on the rpm (your dist should have a gui rpm handler installed).
It's not harder than windows. Unless you make it so.
Never ever show Gentoo/Slackware/Debian to your family and tell them "That's Linux".
.deb files for download, but then you'll still be stuck with the dependancy problem.
From their point of view (it's very important to try to see things from their point of view), that 'Linux' thing is like Windows: one single thing, set in stone. It is not obvious to them that there as many kinds of Linux as there are types of needs to fulfill.
If you're gonna evangelize your family, FIRST tell them that your Linux is geeky because you wanted it so, but that if you were to install them a Linux of their own on their computer, you'd choose an easy-to-use version. Success stories with, say, Mandrake, abound: I switched my girlfriend from Windows to Mandrake and she's very happy with it.
Do NOT try to convince them to use your Slackware/Gentoo/Debian. You'll scare them off.
On the other hand, it can go a long way if you make them an account on your machine, add plenty of links on the desktop so that they never have so see a command-line, and then let them play around with KDE, PySol (a *great* solitaire game that many moms seem to love), Konqueror (or Mozilla, or Opera), Open Office, etc. It also helps to use the Redmond theme at the beginning, so that they feel 'at home'. Also be sure to tell them that the system is secure, and they CAN'T mess it up even if they tried to. You can even try to explain them the concept of privilege separation, if you feel able to put it in simple words.
It worked pretty fine for me. My family knows that 1) my computer is geeky because I wanted it so, but Linux is much more versatile than that; 2) The desktop (KDE) is pretty fine and sleek, and easy to use; and 3) There are lotsa nice apps.
Result: my dad is gonna get a new computer soon, and he told me he wants to remove the mandatory preinstalled XP, and put a 98 (that's what he's used to) AND a Linux.
This said, there's still a major usability issue with Linux, the way I see it: there's still no easy way to install new software. When my girlfriend wanted to install the Psi instant manager, I couldn't get her to install it herself. It was too complicated to hunt for the right lib RPMs and everything.
We must design a non-centralized, click-and-install way to package Linux software. And no, RPM doesn't cut it: if you try to install some stuff that wasn't packaged for your distro, or you don't have the right lib installed, or whatever, it'll often fail. Portage and apt-get don't cut it either: they're centralized things, and there's thus no easy way for the amateur software developper to, say, offer his software for download on his Web page. Well, you can put
I've started working on it, but it's an extremely tricky problem, because, due to the nature of Linux, we can make no assumption about what libs are installed. Anyone wants to contribute ideas?
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
My mom didn't install Linux. She wouldn't be able to do it. And she didn't install Windows either.She wouldn't be able to do it.
Because I'm the neighborhood's computer guy, I get plenty of pleas for help with people's computers when they 'break'. Guess what? They're all running Windows, and people are still stuck when it doesn't work. Heck, once I had to install a printer for a friend of my father's, which was as easy as: 1) plug it in the USB port; 2) it's done, it works. And yet the guy wouldn't do it himself.
Now, don't take me wrong: there are several serious usability problems with Linux (mainly: X is a bitch to configure, and there's no simple click-and-install software installation system -- see my other post about this). But for someone who wouldn't try to install software or change the configuration (which means, for the most clueless users), Linux does work pretty fine.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Windows XP has a very cool thing called 'Remote Assistance', which is quite VNC-like. Using such a system you could go through the problem with your Mum/Dad/Brother/Sister/Son/Daughter/Friend on their screen while they watch - and it includes built-in voice communication so you can talk them through it while you do it, if they're using the internet on their only landline.
No need to go anywhere.
So does my mom. StarOffice 5.2, GNOME, Mozilla, KMail, etc. Incidently she doesn't play games on it but she does the accounting for her home business (as a violin instructor).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
My parents are both using FreeBSD. My mom mostly plays games on the very old (dual) Pentium-100MHz. Vanilla X11 with twm and the Netscape-4.x are great.
My father is using Applix' Office suit on his old (dual) PentiumII-200MHz...
He also listens to a few European radio station, which broadcast in Ukrainian and Russian over the Internet (BBC, Radio Liberty, Doiche Welle (surely missspelled, sorry, German readers)) using the Linux version of RealPlayer. Netscape-4 and Konqueror are his web-browsers...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
She loves having the ability to run apache for my little brothers soccer team's web site. She also likes being able to send mail to her friends in her bridge club. Thelma flamed her for using pine, but then she switched to mutt and all is OK.
But even Mom has problems from time to time. Once this perl script she wrote to send her friends on her mailing list an email every time she added a new cookie recipie(formatted with LaTex BTW) got out of hand spawning new processes, so she called some real guns: my grandma.
"Normally I would have told you to RTFM", my grandma told her, "but grandpa was feeling frisky this morning, so I'm in a good mood. Here's what you do:
"First, you want to make a file containing a list of all those rogue processes. I normally do something like this:
ps -ef | grep cookierecipe | awk `{print $2}` > killfile
"Now that you've got your list, you simply loop through them in bash and kill each one. Whatdya mean, you don't know how to loop in bash?!! Sigh
for $pid in $(cut -fl -d:/home/mom/killfile; do kill $pid done
"Simple as that"
And, with that, my grandma went back to her knitting, and mom happily got her new cookie recipe out.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
what would such a story read like with a Mom-compatible Unix [link to Mac OS X] rather than something lacking fit, finish and finesse?
There would be a difference, and it would be about four hundred U.S. dollars. A low end PC with Windows XP Home Edition installed costs $700, while a low end Macintosh computer with Mac OS X 10.1.x installed costs $1100 (eMac base model). Many families cannot financially justify such a difference.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Firstly, it should not take 2 competent computer literate (not to mention highly knowledgable) guys to install and configure a Linux box. The time it took us would have paid for Win2k in loss in income only.
Ignoring this, we forged ahead to do the "right thing". We got email and dial-up working with effort. (Next time this will be easier... the docs were misleading and out of date - I will not go into detail, it's besides the point)
It was all on a newly purchased PC, thus the hardware was pretty well supported.
Now after 2 weeks of harrowing use, we wiped Linux and installed Win2k.
Firstly I would like to state that it was not Linux at fault... RH7.3 was a pretty good installation. The problem was that the most important sites needing to be visited were IE specific... Netscape 6 did not work, neither did Mozilla, Konquerer, Opera etc.
It's a sad story... but it's true... IE is killing Linux. Where Games, Windows2000, MS Office has failed, IE will triumph.
-sigh-
"There is exactly one program for each task she needs to accomplish."
;) (that's meant in a nice way...)
No. If I had said "why are there 6 'different programs' that would have been a good answer. I said 'six progs that do the same thing'. I swear KDE comes with 6 or so text editors.
Other than that, you have an unusual mom.
Thank you very much.
/. ...
Yes Mom, you can carry on reading
IANAL but write like a drunk one.