The Clueless Newbie Rides Again

overshoot writes "Anyone remember The Clueless Newbie's Linux Odyssey? As it happens, she's come back to have a go at Ubuntu Feisty. 'Four years ago I tried about a dozen Linux distributions, to see if they were ready for an ordinary user to install as an escape from the Windows world. None of the distros performed well enough for me to recommend them to a non-geek unless they were going to hire someone to install it. After hearing Dell's recent announcement that it will sell computers with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux, I decided to see if Ubuntu was user-friendly.'"

Comments

And?

[Colin Smith]

WTF? You don't expect me to go RTFA do you? That's what all those high UID peons are for. Someone post a cogent summary.

Re:And?

[rbanzai]

From the final page:

"I think Ubuntu Linux is definitely ready for almost anyone with a Windows system who is tired of havig their computer infested with spyware and viruses. It is also a way to avoid Microsoft's "activation" demands. It's free! It's good! It works!"

Re:And?

[Enry]

WTF? You don't expect me to go RTFA do you? That's what all those high UID peons are for. Someone post a cogent summary.

Exactly. Let me know when you're done, newbie.

Re:And?

[dAzED1]

"Once it's more of a target, you'll see a gain in attacks."
you don't still believe that, do you?

After all, a suicide bomber doesn't waste his time blowing up a single person unless they're of high importance.

A vast majority of the systems of "high importance" are *nix boxes. Do you really think the PCs owned by soccer moms across the country have more important data on them than bank servers, .mil servers, or the bulk of non-fluff on the net?

One doesn't need to be "stupid" to get a virus in Windows. One merely needs to install a recent copy of the OS, and connect it to the internet. If they're NAT'd, then fine - they merely need to go to a few web pages, or watch a movie. Nothing stupid about any of that.

Re:And?

[Kesshi]

If you like to tinker (which it sounds like you do), I recommend Kubuntu over Ubuntu because KDE is more for people who like to change things while GNOME is for people who just want to "consume" their computer without changing a single damn setting.

Of course, it's completely based on personal preference, so give 'em both a try (before choosing which one to install).

I have no idea what you just said. :)

And this is the part of *nix that has always scared me. :(

I don't know what GNOME or KDE means. I don't know if they're acronyms or abbreviations or what. I'm sure 5 minutes on Google can help me, but I don't want to spend 5 minutes searching for everything "new" in *nix, because, well, EVERYTHING is new to me! If I were to spend 5 minutes on each new *nix term I heard, I would end up spending the better part of a weekend just learning. That's not what I want to do with my weekend.

Your comments, jZnat, look like they're trying to be helpful, but things like this are where people like me get worried and/or scared. I totally understand there will be a learning curve; I expect there to be one. However, I've only just decided to install, and already I'm worried I'm going to do something wrong.

I live alone and I don't have an in-house geek to default to when things go wrong, nor will there be anyone to 'fix' anything I do wrong. Granted, I have a legit copy of Windows 2k Pro (yes, I bought it) which I've reinstalled countless times before, and nothing on my hard drive is irreplacable, so the worst case scenario is a clean Win2kPro install.

Let me sum it up as best I can: I'm wary because you just gave me an option and I don't know of the reprocussions to choosing one over the other.

Regardless, I put my contact info into my bio, and will leave it there for a day or two, so if anyone wishes to contact me they can. Wish me luck. :)

Before anyone slams her....

[iknownuttin]

Keep in mind that she has done the Linux Community a great service by documenting her trials and tribulations.

For those of you in the F/OSS community who want to make their products more mainstream, here's a free user test and feedback.

I take it as a great compliment to you folks in the F/OSS community that someone like her is attempting to install and run your products! It means you are becoming a real alternative to Windows and this editorial is a wonderful way to continue and expand on your excellence.

Just my opinion.

Agreed: Dual Boot installation needs work

[monkeyboythom]

As one person trying to migrate off of Windows (XP and Win2K user), I liked the features of Feisty Fawn running from the Live CD that I wanted to install it to the hard drive.

If we want Ubuntu to move forward, the developers need to recognize the thousands of people who will see it as an installation on top of Microsoft instead of getting a fresh clean installed image from Dell. Get these people comfortable and then the others will follow.

If screen four can be made a little more clear of explain that it has detected a Windows OS and lead the user from there, then we have a wonderful comfort level even before they get to see how Linux is so much better than Windows.

For /. readers, this may be a slow and cumbersome process but then again, if you can have the CD help Mom and Dad install Linux instead of you doing it for her, then there is one less family help desk call you have to make. Also, it makes them feel like they can actually maintain and operate there own systems.

Don't worry, they will still love you, even if they don't need your help anymore.

Yes I can just see that working

[sakdoctor]

Scanning registry 1 of 1000 MB...

Found alexa
Found About Blank
Found Russian spam bot
Found Office 2003

Attempting to apt-get...

Could not find alexa
Could not find bonzi buddy
Could not find Russian spam bot
Installing open office

Importing spam mail 3 of 106,184

Done.

I'm impressed, she figured it all out.

[twitter]

Holy crap! a complete newbie installed a complete 64 bit system and it worked with a few minor problems with non free software not found in 32 bit versions. She had trouble with DVDs, Nvidia drivers, Flash and Picasa, and did not like the GDM login fonts. She was able to solve the Nvidia problem without too much trouble and seems to have made DVDs and Adobe Flash work. All of this with less effort than she would have put into a Windoze box. One reboot and everything "very automatic".

Her comments about non free software are scathing:

Adobe's Flash video player was extremely difficult to install. I have a 64-bit microprocessor, and installed 64-bit Ubuntu. Although 64-bit Linux has been available for more than five years, Adobe hasn't bothered to develop 64-bit version of Flash for Linux yet. My live-in geek tracked the problem down for me, and Adobe is reportedly working on 64-bit software.

The [Picasa] problem is Google, not Ubuntu. Instead of writing real Linux software, all Google did was take their Windows version and wrap it in WINE (fake Windows) to make it work in Linux. I expected Google to do better than that.

This is really cool and shows a good grasp of what free software is all about. She figured out that the non free parts were the problem, not the free parts. This kind of enlightenment from a non programmer is great to see.

Her conclusion is an uncompromising endorsement:

I think Ubuntu Linux is definitely ready for almost anyone with a Windows system who is tired of havig their computer infested with spyware and viruses. It is also a way to avoid Microsoft's "activation" demands. It's free! It's good! It works!

The more I think about it, the nicer the article is. This is a picky user and she's been satisfied. Many of her fears, such as the complete loss of data and OS overwrite, came from M$ use, so her opinion is likely to improve.

Re:To bring this up yet again:

[slackmaster2000]

Have you ever noticed that you can buy Windows at Target and Walmart? Plenty of normal users install Windows on their own. Some have trouble and call you, others don't. In my experience with colleagues and friends, quite a number of people attempt to reinstall or upgrade Windows all by their lonesome.

You're sort of setting an arbitrary line between "normal" and "power" users, based on your own criteria, and then making your argument based upon this assumption. A computer user who can boot from a Windows CD, follow a few instructions, and install Windows is not a terribly special case. Lots of boneheads can do it. I know, they're my friends and family.

Really, the only difficult question that the Windows installer asks is about partitioning and formating. If a user can get past that one, they're in most cases home free.

Re:The best point to note

[Hijacked Public]

Ha, I felt that same fear just this weekend.

While cleaning out my hunting cabin I found a Dell Latitude LS that I thought I'd lost. Nice small laptop but it had Windows 98 on it.

Since my current laptop needs are met by Apple I thought I might as well see how Ubuntu will run on it. During the install I was concerned that it might somehow think I wanted to keep the Win98 partition despite the fact that I specifically asked it to use the entire disk. It never really did confirm anything.

Much to my relief Win98 was gone upon reboot.

Another interesting passage

[markbt73]

in light of the ongoing battle over DRM:

Although CDs played immediately, to play DVDs I had to locate and install some files that bypass content protection coding. The website I acquired them from, www.getautomatix.com , warned me that I might be installing something illegal, but I said, "Yarrr, matey", and clicked the install button. Automatix installed itself, then I selected what I needed. More files were downloaded and installed ... really automagically! After that DVDs worked. I have no clue what it did, and that's the way I like it.

IOW, normal usage of the DVDs (not even gray-area "fair use" copying, but normal playback), on her fully-owned and legally-obtained system, was broken until she installed something that "may be illegal." This is a point we need to make noise about: DRM can make it impossible to simply watch a purchased movie.

I know, not exactly news (to readers here anyway), but it's another opportunity to point it out.

Unix receives more attack attempts than windows.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

UnixA is NOT a smaller target audience, it is in the Desktop, but not on the server.
And let me tell you, servers with a fixed IP address, open well known ports listening, and lots of domains pointing to it are the most common target. I have a fixed IP address, on a Unix machine, and you should just see my logs. Tons of break-in attempts everyday, and my Slackware just resists all of them.

Desktop machines with windows with variable IP addresses are the target of bots. Unix servers with fixed IP addresses are the target of real crackers and wannabes trying to break in 24/7.

Unix is a far more secure platform than Windows; and it has been proved since it's more exposed to heavy attacks all the time.

Re:So?

[MC Negro]

That's a pretty big "if". The truth is that Linux is safer, because it's simply harder to break into. A default Ubuntu install doesn't expose any open ports. Windows is designed to expose hundreds of ports, none of which can safely be closed because that would break random bits of software that Windows depends on. Linux ought to be extremely easy to write exploits for; after all, the code is right there in the open. If it was that easy then most of the servers on the Internet would have been broken into by now, where the vast majority are Linux and Windows is a dwindling minority.

I'm always slightly torn by posts like this. Fundamentally, I agree with the statement "Linux is safer [than Windows]". The problems set in when someone like the OP starts explaining his reasoning. For all the cries of "FUD!" by the typical Slashdotian Linux zealot, these people tend to make up more horseshit on a per-topic basis than any Microsoft-sponsored TCO report could hope to. And they get away with it. Gordonjcp, as someone who would like to see a an Open and Free environment like Linux proliferate in the enterprise market, I'm asking you - and people like you - to please stop. You're doing more harm than good.

Windows is not a dwindling minority. A cursory glance at NetCraft would show that not only does IIS have a noteworthy 31% of the marketshare, it's actually gaining market, while Apache is declining, rendering your original claim almost completely incorrect.

Windows does not have hundreds of unclosable ports. Please, cut that gimmick out. SP2 (included in the current boxed release of Windows) patched a great deal of the port issues and included a decent firewall for home users. Or were you referring to the original release of XP? If that's the route you were going, let me try it on the other end - "This whole Linux thing will never take off. It's not even compatible with common hardware! I just tried to install RedHat 7 on my workstation, and XFree86 wouldn't even start unless I was using 640x480 with the framebuffer driver!".

I wish to reiterate - I would like to see Linux gain ground and acceptance, but I simply cannot stand the hypocrisy of resorting to the FUD tactics of Microsoft. Outlining reasons to not use Windows is a fucking cakewalk without making things up.

Come on, people. Let's keep this a clean fight.

Re:So?

[fonik]

Yeah, I can only get one or two phaser hits on my linux boxes before they adapt.

Great Analogy:

[crhylove]

I loved your Sports car / Party bus analogy.

1. Sports Car: Mac OS X. Pretty fast, looks fancy, you think you're real cool. You paid too much, it's not that reliable. Eventually you'll just have to buy a whole new one, cause maintenance is a real bitch.

2. Party Bus: Windows XP. Kinda scary, might get viruses, but you'll have fun with silly games and plenty of porn. Might drive you to drink too much, might cause hang overs.

3. Work Truck: Debian Linux. Solid, reliable. Gets the job done. Boring. Nobody looks forward to it.

4. SUV: Windows Vista. Everybody wants it, because it looks better than your old car, but when you get it, it's slow, hard to do three point turns in, costs you way too much in gas, and doesn't do some of the stuff your old car did. You end up using your old car, and eventually put it up on Craig's List.

5. Classic Car: Ubuntu. If you keep it in fluids, it runs forever. It's fast, has clean simple lines, all of your friend's are jealous, but not brave enough to switch from their Toyota. Kinda missing some newer creature comforts like cup holders.

6. Moped: Knoppix. Saves money, time, is fast. But you can't do some things you do with your other car, like carry stuff and other people. Plus it's a little embarrassing.

7. Yugo: Windows ME. Barely drove even when brand new. Was KIND OF cute, at first, but within minutes you wished you had a different car. Any car.

8. Toyota: Windows 2000. Saves money, saves time, is pretty fast. Does most of the stuff you need it to do, and easily, but it's really not glamorous. Tons of people are still driving it, but nobody's proud. You probably still have the stock radio, which sucks, but at least it still plays music.