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Basic Linux Systems for the Home User?
Michael J. Kitchin asks: "I'm trying to configure a machine for my 89-year old grandfather, who's never even turned on a computer. His living situation led me to a little slimtop (a Gateway Profile) that I could probably slide another OS into if necessary. Trouble is, the entire pointer-window-desktop metaphor is proving hard to get used to, even though the trackball he settled on is easy to maipulate. His needs are few: writing some, maybe surfing the web, and reading eBooks. Has anybody written some kind of basic GUI that would meet his needs? Any tips/references for how I should lay out such a thing, if I had to? " This should be easy using a fairly simple X11 desktop with buttons to launch the small set of applications mentioned. What suggestions do you folks have?
it looks like an iMac may be the way to go. If *anything* goes wrong with a X11 setup, anything at all, your grandpa will be dead in the water.
There is a nice lightweight customizable shell replacement for Windows called LiteStep. By using this you could create a simple button interface and adjust the desktop area so that the buttons are always visible, or you could use the Wharf to launch programs. This way you could use the windows accecability options to maybe make it easier for him to do things. Check it out at floach.pimpin.net, www.litestep.com, www.litestep.org, tinomen.chunkymunky.com -B
these "linux is the solution, how can i make it fit my problem?" posts are exactly the reason linux users have such a bad rep :-(.
I just put together an old pentium 75 with Linux, WP and Netscape for my sister who only has used Wordstar and WP for Dos untill now.
Used Window Maker for it, simple interface with just 5 buttons on the right of the screen and a menu under the right mouse button with stuff like customize, mount floppy and shutdown. I also took a look at KDE and other but they have way to much extra options, buttons and other nice things for power users (for example multiple desktops).
Also put in dial in options and VNC so when she has question I can either telnet and trouble shoot or start a shared x-windows session to show stuff. Really works great! Don't think another OS can beat Linux on this part.
The downside is the load of work I had to put in to make everything work. I'm used to su'ing and do the shutdown thing. But sorting out this stuff for normal users (without opening the box to the rest of the internet) and putting it in a nice menu structure took quite some time.
Remember At Ease? If it still exists, it makes a mac MUCH easier thlan windows, KDE, CDE, etc.
Why not share the wealth? Put your scripts, work, notes etc on how you did it up on a Web Page somewhere.
its much harder than getting the same for linux. there are a TON of people online with very good ideas/suggestions/etc for linux, as well as an overwhelming amount of documentation online.
windows? no. tech support personel will confuse, the cute octegenarian won't be able to help any more than he can...etc
and with a properly set up unix box, he probably won't need much tech support at all. point -> click -> any questions?
add to that that netscape is netscape, a word processor is a word processor, and beyond the OS, advice works nearly as well on all systems.
Linux is actually a good choice because it's so configurable. The things that the "average" user will have problems with (for example, downloading and installing new software from the internet) will probably not be an issue for him. He'll probably have two or three apps that he uses all the time, and he won't be interested in downloading the latest game demo or anything like that. And best of all, if he's having problems and needs an upgrade to one of his apps, you can easily telnet in and do it on the spot.
I recommend Afterstep 1.0 (nice, big, visible buttons) set up with three or four colorful icons for his favorite apps. Maybe the telephone icon for PPP-connect, the pen/paper for the word processor, and the netscape icon for netscape. (Don't forget to turn off Java; without Java on, netscape 4.5+ is actually quite stable.)
You should probably get rid of the "quit X-windows" button, as well as the desktop menu that comes up when you right-click.
Win98 seems to handle poweroffs nicely. In Win95, if I was in the middle of a download when the power went out, the file would be corrupted, with the wrong file size, and when ScanDisk fixed the filesize, it'd usually have a few KB of junk data appended to it. With Win98, for some odd reason, when the computer reboots, without even running scandisk, the filesize is correct, and the file is exactly as long as it needs to be. No corrupt data or metadata, and the download resumes fine. I've also tested this by powering off the computer while chatting on an IRC client set up to log the chat. In Win95, the logfile is corrupted, while in Win98 the logfile abruptly ends right after the last text that was typed before the poweroff.
Anyway, that was sorta off-topic...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have had quite a bit of experience in getting linux systems easy to use. I'm alone in my little world for the most part as a linux geek, and the people around me rarely figure out even the simplest concepts in windows.
But it only takes me 10 seconds to show people windowmaker. There are only 2 ways within the GUI to launch applications, the stable versions RARELY, if EVER crash, and it's one of the few linux gui's out there that really can smoothly be configured from teh desktop. (I have had numerous problems with KDE and GNOME segfaulting when I try to configure them from the GUI)
If he has vision problems, Windowmaker is default setup with large icons and fonts.
The best thing would be to try this, and many other windowmanagers out there and ask him what he thinks is best, as what is best for one is not for another.
-Erik-
The elderly probably don't have the reaction time (or inclination) to play doom or quake, but some good games can really ease the learning curve of whatever you do. It is no accident that Microsoft always has solitary in windows. Almost everyone knows the rules (and several varations so that they know to figgure out if the 10 of hearts goes on the jack of hearts or a jack of clubs/spades) Once they start playing the mouse becomes second nature, and no long teaching was needed.
Blackjack, solitary, skat, sheephead (my grandpa's favorite), cribbage and more all fit for card games. After they have done a few of those introduce them to a few adventure games.
Almost 2 years ago I set up a PC with Win95 for my mother-in-law. She had no experience with PC's, but had a dumb terminal hooked up to an AS/400 at work. This is what she thought a computer was, and how all computers worked. She has been totally lost with Windows and MS Office because of the paperclip help system, minimizing and maximizing windows, pretty little icons in the toolbar, the start menu (that she says shouldn't be named START if you use it to shutdown) and everything else.
I can't count the number of hours I have spent on the phone trying to figure out things she has done in MS Word. I think the best thing that I could have done for her is set up Linux, and the most minimalistic window manager I could get, like plain old FVWM with Applix and Netscape and EzPPP for Internet access.
I would choose Applix over StarOffice because it is faster and SMALLER. No stupid features she doesn't need. Features just get users like this lost. That don't care about formating tables or columns, they are typing Christmas or birthday letters to the family. Applix also doesn't open multiple windows inside itself for multiple documents. I don't have a problme with this, but users like her do. They just get her LOST.
I would chose EzPPP for the internet dialer because it is small, simple and it works. Teamed with Netscape, this is all she needs for the internet.
FVWM gives me a simple WM that can't be screwed up and if I use xv with it I can still put my son's picture on the desktop for her. Minimizing an app gives a nice big icon on the desktop that she can easily find. I would then probably use kfm for the filemanager, because I think tkDesk would be too hard for her to understand. She really almost never uses a filemanager anyway. She just saves her word processor documents.
I would have done this last year, except my son plays his games on ths PC when we visit. I think it's time to dual boot this system now. I'm tired of tech support calls that last hours because of a paper clip and MS Word.
Quicker
Sounds like you've already bought the hardware -- sorry about that. You probably should have considered a Mac (PowerBook or iBook if grandpa doesn't mind the color), since there is considerably less to worry about there. If not MacOS, consider Linux CLI, or WindowMaker, or Afterstep (too bad NeXT Computers never made a laptop...).
For those people suggesting he go with Windows: no. There's a hell of a lot more to learn in using Windows graphically than in using X graphically, since Windows has a richer and more in-depth metaphor to work from. If the guy is 89 years old, he doesn't have a lot of time to learn the desktop paradigm, and once Linux and X are set up it's pretty damned simple. Click or double-click (one click for afterstep, I think?) on the picture over on the right side of the screen, your program pops up. Click on the program's top edge to move it around, click on another program to see the whole program. In the apps he's likely to use, Using the File menu to exit would work and and the little buttons on the top of the program can safely be ignored. In fact, most everything can be safely ignored, and papers can be typed and the web can be surfed.
--Matthew
my roomate, who has previously only watched her
girlfriend on her mac. she was as computer
illiterate as they come. gave her a simple
menu on mlvwm (mac like window manager) with
netscape, aol toys (instant messanger etc) and
a couple other such things, thus a simplified
version of the mac interface. she never had a
problem with it.
First off, he's apparently in a business environment, so there should be someone (probably him) to admin the machines. I've never seen a problem like your #1 (but I've never used Red Hat either), but that sounds like it's due to a bug in one of the programs which, hopefully, will get reported and fixed.
For one thing, this is the sysadmin's responsibility. The users shouldn't have anything on their menus that isn't installed on the system. I probably have it easy. I just told GNOME to use the Debian menuing system. Regardless, the admin should know how to keep the menus up to date. This is definitely the sysadmin's responsibility. A well-configured system will load the needed modules in the startup scripts. How is this a problem? You highlight the text, go to the other window, and middle-click. The buggest hurdle here is people who are used to the way Windows does cut-and-paste. I'll have to disagree with you a little here. I don't think that Linux is quite ready for the average user's desktop yet. (I do think that it's moving in that direction.) For use in a business, Linux, properly admined, is quite useable now. As long as someone else is worrying about the system setup, users can just log in, run their programs, and do their work. Locked down and minimalized? Maybe somewhat. Mortal users can't go mucking with the majority of the system. In a business environment, that's for the better. It keeps them from damaging things and lets the computer run much more smoothly. The users can still create and manage their own files. They can even play with their desktop themes. They just can't accidentally delete--Phil (And yes, I've had to deal with windows users who have accidentally deleted important system files.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
Trouble?
Win9x is presumably already installed on "Grampa"'s system. Is it more trouble for you to replace his operating system with one you've spent a few hours customizing for his tasks, or is it harder to go into the control panels and enable the "one-click" activation?
You need to look at the big picture here.
Why would this be easier? You could spend an equivalent amount of time setting up a decent Start Menu or a few desktop icons for his use and he wouldn't have to do any more learning than under Linux.
In fact, as most all Windows apps have a consistent GUI, I imagine it'd be *easier* to learn Windows apps simply because that's all that would be left to learn: the apps.
...and when you're not available?
What if you're in class? On a plane? On vacation? At work? Having dinner?
There are reasons people are paid to answer tech support questions. If you want to be the typical masochistic Linux user and be everyone's "sysadmin" instead of the guy that installed their PC, that's your decision, but it's a decision you're going to have to live with for the entire time they're using Linux, as it's doubtful they'll find anybody else who can or is willing to answer their questions when you can't.
How is this any better than Windows? Spend a moment to strip down the Start menu or the icons on their desktop and you've got a system that's just as easy to use as your hypothetical WM setup, with just as nice of a "button gui that goves over the windows."
Generally, you want people to learn about their computer and how to do simple administrative tasks on it. This isn't a problem if you want to lock yourself into a "sysadmin" role for the rest of their life, but for those of us that want to set them up with something they can use, be comfortable with and *learn*, Linux is not the solution here.
1. The requirement for "Linux skills" is precisely why Linux is a bad choice here. One should not need to have "skills" to work with an operating system.
2. Can we avoid calling people names? If you have a point, come out and present it, but don't disrespect people because you have nothing valuable to offer to the discussion. Typical AC.
So don't use Windows!
Windows and Linux are not the only operating systems in existence out there. I personally do not find Linux to be the best solution for this task, and Windows is only marginally better.
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet, but it would be an excellent addition to the Windows/Linux/(MacOS/BeOS) debate.
But as I have mentioned elsewhere, if there is a user who is nervous about using a computer, and there is someone else who can handle the system administration, linux can be ideal.
But at the same time, you're *forcing* yourself into the role of this Someone Else for the rest of their life. What happens when you're away? There sure as hell isn't going to be anybody else around that can tell them how to fix the symlink they just deleted.
Eventually, people are going to want to expand their horizons a little bit and learn how to *use* the operating system they have on their PC. When that time comes, they're going to wish they had an easier-to-learn operating system like Windows to tinker with.
I give friends who want to learn Linux a telnet account on by box. One of the first questions they ask is, "What if I break something?" Ah, for those used to Windows, the concept of not being able to cripple the box as a normal user is a strange on indeed. I tell them that if they are able to mess up the box, they have advanced past the novice stage :)
:-) I'll have to remember that for the guys out west.
hahahahahahahahaha... I LIKE that!
Andrew
The biggest demographic using WebTV is the over-65 group. There is nothing to break, and one can just turn it on like a TV. If all he wants to do is read email, surf, and write letters, then this will do all of the above with minimum fuss. Having it on a big TV would help those with bad eyesight and it can be hooked up to some printers for hardcopy output.
The only drawbacks as far as I can see are:
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I was the first in our family to get a computer (Sinclair Spectrum, 1982). Made me what I am. Anyone else here moved RAMTOP?
My stepmother, a dealer in antique porcelain figurines (Dresden etc) was the second. In 1984 she rightly ignored my advice (to get a Sinclair QL, Christ forgive me!) and let a "consultant" sell her an Apricot running MS-DOS, Wordstar and some lashed-up database written in compiled BASIC using the BTRIEVE libs. Apricot (like DEC, Sanyo, Sirius, Research Machines and Phillips in those days) made non-IBM-architecture MS-DOS machines (640Kb limit? the Apricot had a 960Kb limit!).
This machine, like many in this era, shipped with DOS plus a couple of early GUIs: GEM from Digital Research and ACTIVITY from Apricot itself. I showed these to both of them and they both made comments like:
- Why would anyone need these silly pictures?
- Don't insult my intelligence!
- This just makes it slower...
Skip forward to 1990. Stepmother is now on a 386sx using WordPerfect 5.1 and has junked the database, doing everything she needs with WP51 macros and merge. The machine has Windows 3.0 on it but she never uses it. Dad has inherited her old Apricot and is running a really weird implementation of Wordperfect 4.1. That year he too obtains a 386sx and in due course the household standardises on WP5.1. A year later I do a few image scans for him and show him how to manipulate them in an early TIFF editor called IPHOTO that runs in Windows 3.1.
For a few more years they live in WordPerfect for DOS and only use Windows when the REALLY HAVE TO... Both of them are uncomfortable with the core feature of Windows, namely BEING IN MANY PROGRAMS AT ONCE. The "state cues" are poor in Windows, whereas in the old world life is simple: If the screen is black you are in DOS, if the screen is blue you are in WordPerfect.
Skip forward to now. Dad spends most of his life in WP51 for DOS on a 90MHz Pentium. Drops into Windows 3.11 to run the scanner. Stepmother is about to buy a new machine to replace her still-functioning 386sx. She wants to use the Web and email, but not all the time. Mostly she wants to be single-tasking in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.
So sometime next month I shall travel to their house and monkey with her MSDOS.SYS so as to leave her, most of the time, in "Windows 98 Command Prompt only", i.e. DOS...
Personally, I think they have a point. They like a machine to be in only one state at a time.
george
I had a problem with my old Gateway machine about 2 years ago... my cdrom drive went bad. I called tech support, and after telling them that the drive was bad in all 3 operating systems (95, nt, linux), the tech support dude put me on hold, came back two minutes later, and told me that since the machine was not in its original state, he couldn't support me.
Needless to say, my next computer was not a gateway. But back to the original point - let your grandpa be able to use the tech support that came with the machine. You might be able to reinstall the OS and fix up config files, but you won't be able to repair a cdrom drive or a busted screen, will you?
Keep linux far away from people who just need to get stuff done with a machine. It's just not ready for grandpa yet. Maybe in a few years...
I'd have your granddad use emacs and twm for a window manager. I find I can do the vast majority of computeing tasks using emacs, and twm provides a simple, attractive, standard environment. It is never too late to show good taste in your choice of hacking tools.
Linux is a great idea! You can set him up as a regular user so
he can't hurt the system while he's learning. Then he can get some Basic Linux Training.
Would you really feel comfortable giving a grandparent root access on a Windows box ? I didn't think so.
OTOH, seting him up with Windows will give you the opportunity to spend a lot more time together.
Go Caldera Open Linux 2.3 with KDE.
It's pretty much brain dead. And once it's set up, you can pretty much leave it alone.
KDE is pretty much straightforward.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"It is kinda weird that he'de choose Linux before he had chosen an interface, so you sure have a point there"
Goddamn, this is like some crazed version of the telephone game. The guy doesn't mention Linux once in his short statement. He simply asked if there was "some simple OS/GUI" that any of us could recommend.
Yes, all the same ol' arguments are rehashed here (if they'd never seen a computer...blah blah blah.) Well, what you have to realize here is that while a WIMP interface might work well for us, something else entirely might work for ol' grandpa. Perhaps some sort of interface based on walking uphill to school every day through snow, who knows. Point is, is there anything DIFFERENT out there as far as user interfaces go that just might be more intuitive than the average windowing interface?
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
I agree; this is easy to do, and there isn't anything else on the screen to distract. Afterstep is a really good choice for a black box interface.
Whats wrong with that? Older women use linux too.
:)
heh..
----
If it has a modem, you can set it up for remote
administration. Never mind the ISP, silly.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The "old people" who I've helped with computers
have generally done better with character interfaces (cp/m, dos) than with windowing interfaces.
We assume too much about gui's. Icons just plain
don't make sense to some people, even after using them for years.
Keep it simple. Make a login profile that brings
up pine. Don't spring any applications on the old
man other than Email.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
At the moment, things are going ok. The entire concept of a compuer "application," versus the OS or box itself, has taken some getting used to, so I've improvised. I figured that, in keeping with the keep-it-simple type of recommendations seen here, he ought to get used to just doing something with the machine regularly before I lay all of the possiblities on him (meaning that I tried the latter first and it was a mistake...).
:)
First, I configured TextPad (for Windows) to come up with a nice large font and stay on top of all other windows, with special keyboard mappings such that printing is reduced to a one-key operation, etc.
Several posters pointed out that the graphical "density" of the display might be an issue, and it was, meaning that he had difficulty making out icon labels and other UI elements. To cope, I chose a high resolution, for maximum clarity, but a really large desktop fonts and easy an to resolve color scheme (un-busy background pattern, "Lilac"-purplish).
Fortunately, the Profile's all-AC-powered LCD is *very* bright and clear, with no glare whatsoever, so post-cataract-operation eyes don't get too tired too quickly. I chose the Profile mainly because of this display and low footprint, btw -- my grandfather's apartment doesn't have enough room for even a (first-generation) iMac, with its full-size CRT.
To round everthing out, the Profile can be shut down "nicely," like a laptop, so all my grandfather has to do when he's done writing is to hit the power button and everything goes off cleanly (as long as all applications exit ok...).
So far, so good -- but he's only had it without me around for a few days. Thanks for all of the ideas and encouragement! I'll keep your suggestions at hand when either this approach doesn't work or when he wants to go to the next level (kernel hacking, that is
"Professional coder on closed source. Do not attempt."
Actually, if there were a decent SVGA-mode graphical web browser and a decent simple textmode word processor, I'd be almost okay with this. But there isn't.
But there are both of these things for DOS. Try, say, an old DOS word processor like WordPerfect 5.1 or 6.x for word processing, and Arachne as a web browser.
Then top it off with a few simple *.bat files for the following:
You get the idea. I hope.
Okay, this is at the bottom of the list, prolly won't get read, but learn to make a simple theme for enlightenment. Here is how it goes.
.). Tell E to remember the location of each window and you are done (the windows go to the edge of the desktop save one side with the buttons). Maybe sawmilll would be better, but you get the point. A simple 'su grandpa; startx' at the end of init would be good enough, and then leave the other terminals open in the very unlikely event you would ever have to fix something again. It would be as simple as the browser and email client, basically (heh, you could even use Opera if it suited you and came out in time).
2 Desktops, one with Netscape Navigator, one with NSMail (or client of your choice). Completely borderless, with a button to switch desktops, and maybe one that will run shutdown, one that will run something that kills Netscape dead and restarts it (bloated, buggy . .
Since you've already bought the Gateway (with Win98, most likely), I say stick with that and don't bother to go with Linux. Your grandfather doesn't need much more than the basics and all of those have been provided. It's good enough as is.
Just show him how to reboot, connect to AOL, use the browser, email, print, and write on the word processor, then hand him your pager number and say "if you ever need help, give me a call Grandpa." That's the right solution.
The credo is "Keep it simple, stupid."
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
This may be a long shot, but some E themes, not only Shiny Metal, contain application-launching buttons. You may be able to replace the images with some that are easier to use. Otherwise, you could try making desktop shortcuts with GNOME or KDE to his applications.
My aunt just got my grandfather an imac. It confuses the hell out of him. He just doesnt understand what all the things are, the finder, the changing menus. It even confuses my dad, who is pretty good with computers. I suspect that macs, like windows, dos, linux, is only good if you learned it early on or have been using it for a while.
Again, I think it depends on the person. You're right that breaking something, and seeing that it is fixable is a great way to get over fear. But I think there are people who it's difficult to get to use a computer at all because they're afraid of breaking it. If you tell them it's set up so they can't hurt it, they're more willing to try it.
Also, how are mac's safer from viruses then linux boxes?
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
If you configure a linux box so that it's not running network services, (except perhaps a copy of sshd for remote admin - with only specific machines allowed to connect) it's certainly not easy to break into. And I haven't ever had to worry about viruses. If they're a concern anything along the lines of tripwire can take care of them. More importantly, if a user has no write permissions on the software their using, they can't infect it.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
Basically this assumes that they're going to do their own sysadmin'ing. In a case like this, where someone else is willing to handle the setup and configuration stuff in many ways linux is easier. What makes linux harder for the average user is that unix was designed with the intention that the average user would not be maintaining their own machine. If this is in fact true, than linux can be quite simple to use, particularly with any of the straightforward setups mentioned below. If the users doess need to maintain everything themselves, then it becomes harder. In that case macOS or beOS is probably a good idea.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
It takes an awful lot more time to make sure a users can't easily damage a windows computer than a linux one. By default the linux one is virtually indestructable from the user perspective - last I checked I had something like 20 programs running suid on my computer, and those were things like login. As for exploring, I think I learned more in 6 months without trying, using linux, then I had in years of using windows. Most stuff in linux makes sense. Personally I just find it easier to understand.
I fully agree that linux is not for all situations. But as I have mentioned elsewhere, if there is a user who is nervous about using a computer, and there is someone else who can handle the system administration, linux can be ideal.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
OK, my second point was that I don't find windows easier to learn. To me the contrived attempts at user-friendlyness make it rather illogical. Some commands in linux may be esoteric, but they generally make sense. This may just be me, but personally I find troubleshooting windows machines extremely difficult.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
to clarify (yuk yuk), bigger pixels aren't the answer. bigger fonts are. the best for old people is a laptop running linux console-mode 80x34. fast zippy and comfortable. end of discussion.
This is a bit of a tangent.
I (and I'm sure many other readers here) am occasionally pressed into service as first-line tech support for my friends and relatives. It can be quite difficult to talk someone else through even a simple process like using Win9x's "Find" dialog box if you're not right there to show the other person how to do it.
The only reason I would consider using a free Unix of any sort for a non-technically-adept home user would be the remote troubleshooting options. I can envision that life would be a lot simpler if I could just fix a problem remotely rather than talk a neophyte through the solution. I long for the day when I can ssh into my parents' computer 400 miles away and fix a problem for them in 40 seconds, rather than spending 20 minutes trying to talk my Mom or Dad through some GUI to fix their problem.
They released KDE while you were out...
don't force Linux to do what it is currently ill equipted to do, that will only give it a bad name.Actually, Linux is very well equiped to serve as a stable platform that novice users can't mess up. It gives them a full graphical environment allowing them to do anything they want with one click of the mouse. It also provides the strongest remote administration ability, which is *vital* when being used by people who don't want to learn how to maintain their own PC. Which is the case for most consumers, I might add.
-Brent--
I've thought about this problem before for family members. Windows (referring to the graphical boxes, not any OS), icons, desktops, they're all much more difficult to use than they need to be. Unforunatly, I've never found something that /is/ really really really really simple, either in windows or linux. Due to the setup of X, it would be much easier to create such a system than it would be with windows.
/not/ use these concepts? Choose an application with hot keys or by clicking from a full-screen menu, set it's geometry to a full screen, provide some way to close windows if a dumb javascript thing tells netscape to remove the file menu and such. Extra simple, super easy, but still very usable? :) I'd be very interested in being part of such a project, in both design and programming. It shouldn't be excessively difficult I would think, and a proper setup would be useable by anyone.
Is anyone interested in creating something akin to a X window manager that does
One of the things I kept reading in the preceding comments is that you must be crazy to use Linux (or *BSD) because it is so much more difficult. But the 'difficult' parts of Unix are in setting things up and administrating it, not in using it for normal user tasks.
One of the very nice things about any Unix system is that you can cleanly separate the system administration and the daily use. If you set it up properly, even a heavily used Unix desktop computer will take only very little administration, if any at all. And a user has to know nothing at all about it. Show me that on a Windows computer!
Even if the computer is not shut down properly, you must really be very unlucky if it will not come up again properly - granted, after a short (or somewhat longer) wait for the fsck to finish, but that is not very much different from the Win95/98/NT setup.
I know from experience that one of the things new users are most afraid of is that they will break something. When I told my mum that she could press any and all buttons, keys and other things, without any fear that she might do something fatal to her/mine computer, she started to really explore and try things, instead of living in eternal fear like she did on the Windows computer.
Yes, setting up a good user environment will take some work. I still think Unix is your best choice.
Since there really aren't any alternatives with the pointer/windows/desktop enviroment which is probably the most easy to use. It would probably be easier for you to help your grandfather become more familiar.
Have your grandfather play solitaire for several days. This will definately make him a better solitaire player, as well as teach him how the mouse works, how drag-n-drop works, how menus and dialog buttons, and buttons, etc.
You might also want to change the accessibility options which would allow single click instead of double click instead.
>Anybody remember the old single-pixel HFS indicator on the Mac Finder?
I do it was the single pixel on the seperator at the top of the window. It was inbetween the double lines.
Some people hear seem to forget that this isn't just some guy who is new to computers, but has never used a computer before. GUI's you all have mentioned are great, but are not simple. I say use AfterStep, since all he has to do is click big icons. Bye the way, AS was my first Linux GUI, and the only problem I had with it was trying to configure it (add backgrounds, change button images) (but I guess you will be doing that for him). I guess AS has some config tool by now though.
But since you say he has a problem with windows+pointers anyway, the easiest one for him to use would be text based. So use DOS + some menu program in dos + WordPerfect 5.1. The only problem is the web browser. Even if lynx does work under dos (I pretty sure it would), it might be hard to explain to him why some web pages look horrible under them. But most sites look OK under lynx (considering it is text based).
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Wow. Kind of typical of Slashdot that a simple little question like this turns into OS Advocacy Day.
Frankly, I think a lot of the people are hitting this from the wrong angle. The operating system is not important, or at least not as important. What matters is what he needs to do with it.
Does he just need to check email, read e-books, browse the web a little, write letters? Nothing else at all?
Those are all pretty generic things, really. Almost any OS these days has the applications to support that. Windows could, Linux could without a doubt. If he's not going to be needing to do anything beyond that--no buying the neatest new game or productivity software to come down the pipe--then the grandson can set up any OS he chooses to do the task, and teach the grandfather to do it. And despite the noise all the OS advocates are making, there's not really much difference in ease of use as long as someone else sets the system up and shows him how to use it.
The choice, then, becomes a matter of expediency (leave Windows on there and use it) vs. ease of maintenance (go to the trouble of installing & configuring Linux for him).
The thing is, it depends on how the grandfather is going to use the system. I think there's a tendancy among Slashdotters to unconsciously assume everybody is a "power user" like they are...that they'll want to play computer games or organize their videotape collection or do half a dozen other things on the side. But computers aren't the most important things in people's lives. My father uses his Windows 95 box for reading email, writing letters & things, and the occasional teeny bit of websurfing...and that's it. He's never played a computer game in his life...and what's more, he has absolutely no interest in them. He has never, that I'm aware of, gone out and bought some new piece of computer software and tried to install it. If I knew enough about Linux to be confident in my ability to configure and remote-administrate it properly, I would have set it up on his box in a heartbeat. But I don't, so I left it alone. The point is, it shouldn't matter (to him) what OS he has as long as he can do 100% of the things he wants to do with it.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Yes! Finally someone anwers the way I wanted to. Windowmaker's dock and clip are ideal for what the poster is looking for. Plus the little dock apps are sweet and easy to use (though maybe a little too small for an older person... but with the resolution at 600x800 the apps could be large enough.) Plus Windowmaker is gnome-compliant which means you could put all kinds of cute icons on the desktop and give him a start menu for when his needs extend beyond the 5 or 6 apps that can be launched from the dock.
Best of luck.
PS. Just a matter of personal opinion but I don't think I would give Linux to my parents just yet. It's almost there. I think in less than a year I'll tell them to make the switch. I hear the mandrake distro is good for newbies. I should check it out.
<SIG>
I think I lost my work ethic while surfing the web. If you find it, please email it to crispy@crotch.caltech.edu.
</SIG>
My sig has a broken link in it.
Seriously, he would get frustrated with the crashing, erratic behavior of applications and general lack of smoothness which is noticable when using the system.
;)
I have several older relatives and the older they get the more important it is that things run smoothly - comfortably and predictably for them. They have a hard time with unexpected events like machines breaking for no apparent reason.
And yes, both my mother and mother-in-law run Linux. And they would not change given the choice now. (both are over 65) Mom used to run Windows and I used to get a phone call every other day asking to fix this or that... And they dig Tux
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
I see everybody screaming and yelling and turning this persons question into more of a debate than it has to be.
My 68 Yr. old grandmother has been very happy with her Linux box for over a year now. I just upgraded her to Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 and she is as happy as can be. (read further before flaming, please.)
Basically when determining if you want someone to use a Linux box take their needs into consideration. What are they doing now? What do you think they'll be doing a year from now? Will they be someone who will just "use" the computer, or will they be a future "geek"?
My grandmother's needs were simple. To surf the internet, send and receive e-mail, and type up letters. Maybe from time to time she'll play a game of solitare. For her a Linux box, Netscape, WordPerfect 8, and KPP with a local-dial up is all she needs, and wants.
I don't advocate shoving a Linux box down someone's throat just for the "cool" factor, but when my grandmother became seriously discouraged from computing beacause Internet Explorer and Win95 crashed way too often, I saw a window of opportunity (pun not intended) to provide her with a better solution to fill her needs.
Basically, to get back to the point, take the user's needs into consideration first and foremost
as they say, "if the shoe fits, wear it!"
"Fortune, Fame, Mirror Vain, Gone Insane..... But The Memory Remains...
I actually just set this up for a cousin of mine. It seems to work great. I installed Caldera DR-DOS 7.03 and New Deal on an old 486-33/4MB RAM/40MB HDD. I fit the entire New Deal install, including office type apps, and about 20 DOS games in there, without using Stacker compression. Simple.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for this application, too many bells and whistles and an interface that might be too inflexible to lock down properly. In DOS everybody is Root.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
> worked fine except you must be root to mount floppies a . . .
Not true! You can mount your floppies through the Automounter Daemon, KDE sets up a link on the desktop for this. The upside is that they never have to mount/unmount drives, the downside is that floppies can be ejected before AMD can unmount them (5 sec default) possibly causing corruption.
Otherwise you could set up the floppy (and CDROM) to be user mountable. This is how I have my KDE desktop set. You just right click and mount/unmount, a little green light goes onto the icon to let you know if a FS is mounted. Upside: know what is mounted when, deters corruption, downside: must know about mounting/unmounting filesystems.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
I had forgotten about the WebTV. This would be an excellant solution. A cheap, blackbox machine that he won't be able to mess up, or have to fix. Also you won't have to configure it extensively before you turn it over to him. The downside is that AFAIK you have to use the WebTV ISP, and the browser that ships with it is not the best.
Otherwise I agree that Linux/X11 can be set up with the same capabilities, and more. You can run it on older hardware (What's a P200/64MB going for these days?) with great performance. The benefits are remote admin and an abundance of software (Not every piece of software needs to be bought from BestBuy/CompUSA) and the ability to learn at time goes on.
Just $0.02
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
The problem with creating an appliance PC is that people will tend to treat it like one. They'll turn it on when they want to use it (and not want to wait 5 min for startup).
A good argument for linux then - it boots way faster than windows. As for turning off - just teach them to use the "power off" menu choice instead of the button. Very simple. Or let cron run "sync" every minute or so to minimize damage.
What concerns me somewhat here is that most
Linux proponents suggest giving yourself root
and restricting the user, so that you could
administer the system. I'd argue that this
points to a complete disregard for your client's
privacy. I have said this before and will repeat
many more times - sysadmins are evil, they exist
to restrict user rights and to take away your
privacy. Resist the temptation to be a sysadmin
whenever and wherever you can.
For the above reason I'd choose a true single user
system, i.e. the Mac, more specifically the iMac.
[Laughing] This really hits me hard, because I think I played that game just this morning. It was incredible, I got to watch the whole thing... I explained a Y2K problem with an old program to the boss, who then told it to the sales lady, slightly mutated (the story, not the lady), who then told it highly mutated to the customer over the phone. And I got to see the whole thing. Damn, that was amazing. I could just picture the customer's face as he heard my twisted words.
I love the telephone game!
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I would wish windows only on my worst enemy. All its defenders here are so pathetic, stuck with their primitive, yet familiar, concepts of human/computer interfaces. When installation and hardware compatibility are ruled out, there is no question whatsoever which platform is easier to learn and use, because X-windows is incomparably more configurable for whomever the intended user is.
By the way, my mom said she would never use a computer until she didn't have to type or mouse. A group is already working on the next generation interface (speech recognition) that, not surprisingly, will be based on linux.
tcboo
All of these are valid, and important reasons.
:-)
/etc/rc:
su - grandpa;startx
/etc/inetd.conf:
only allow telnet so you can do remote administration.
The important thing is that you cater the system to what he needs, there's a million ways to do this with Linux, and if you get it right you'll never have to worry about him again. Of course it will be a lot of work for you up front
Windows is a do-all system for everyone. What you need is a do-a-few-things system for one guy. It'll be tough to get that out of windows.
-Rich
I absolutely, positively *agree*.
The whole idea that GUIs are easier to use than line based or command based interfaces is misled and misleading, at best.
I've found the easiest way to deal with complete newbies who don't want to learn anything more than what they have to do to write, check email, whatever is to set up a basic box, configure everything appropriately, and write up a cheatsheet doc : i.e. if you want to check your email, log in with your username and password, connect to the internet by typing 'ppp-on' (which should be a pathed script that does all the connection and gives an error if the connection fails), type 'pine' etc. Choose the simplest tools you can find that do what your user wants to do (I'm fond of pine for email and pico for editing, in most cases, even though I'm an insane vi user who woudln't be caught dead using pico myself ) etc etc, and write up cheatsheets to handle the important tasks in each of those applications.
GUIs tend to be needlessly complicated for newbies with simple needs.
Newbies always want a cheat sheet. I wrote my mom a cheat sheet of instructions for common tasks, set her up with a modem program and the like, and now she runs NetBSD. Mostly so I can do remote admin. :) e.g., when Netscape doesn't like to check her mail, I can run it remotely and poke around. It's worked great. Lyx, for those who wonder what she's writing in.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
go ahead and strip down a window manager to it's basics. AfterStep was easy enough to do that with. Leave a button for closing the app on the window. Then go ahead and write a little program, using some real basic graphics library that has pictures and text descriptions.
One of the big things in doing this is to make it REAL simple. You want the user to be able to do ONLY what needs doin'. I wrote something in Xforms for a student lab once that is very similar to what you'd want. I'll give you the source if you want it, but it's UGLY.
With Macintosh/Windows, they can go into a store, buy a game, take it home, put the CD in the drive, close the drive, click 'Next' a few times (as per the directions that magically pop up on the screen), click 'Finish' and have instant access to a new piece of software.
Yes, but installing the operating system would be just as difficult with windows as with Linux.
And, is it a good or a bad thing that things install easily? What happens when "some malicious user" makes a CD which auoinstalls a nice little virus? Grandpa things "Hmm.. whats on this CD" puts it in the CD-drive.. and wham.
"So have them download the software from the 'Net." Right there you open up a whole new can of worms. With IE and Windows, you can click on a link to an install file and get a nice window asking if you'd like to open that item. "Sure." Installation proceeds as above. Linux in its current state does not NEARLY meet the requirements of a "new" computer user or one who wants to do very simple, minimal tasks.
Yargh. NO! If its something I really HATE its trojans and autorun functions. I've been cleaning some hundred dmsetup / netbus infections the last year (maybe thousands).
People should NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY DO when they install programs. It shouldn't be an easy task they don't need to learn first. If it is, they'll infect themselves with dmsetup, netbus, backorifice and so on.
At least, the OS they use when they do such things, should have a real security-model. They shouldn't know the administrator password, and should never install anything as administrator. They should not be able to screw up the system, or cause a systemwide virusinfection - or open the system up for remote system administration by an accident (netbus,bo,etc).
I've had my Win98 system up for 12 days now, and my NT system at work (mainly due to the hard work of our PC support folks ensuring software and service packs we install are as stable as possible) has been up for not quite a month.
You call that stable? I don't have problems with my computers except hardware trouble. Maximum uptime 'till now is 60 days or so - but since I don't have an UPS.. well, it's kind of difficult to get more than 60days uptime for me. I need to upgrade hardware, sometimes the power fails and so forth. (argh, I hate the fcheck after a powerfailure.. I NEED that UPS.. NOW!)
Point is, I've not had a single operating-system caused kernel panic (and therefore have never needed to reboot my system because of the system itself). only kernel panic I had was when my cooler-fan stopped working (the processor did survive! All hail Cyrix!)
A simple background virus scanner is all that's required if he ever decides to get adventurous. I've never in my life had a computer virus under Windows. It has a lot to do with *how* you use your computer.
The background virus-scanner needs to be updated.
Furthermore, what if old grandpa decided that "chatrooms" (irc..) is a nice thing, and what does good old grandpa do when some chick send him a "video of herself"(in reality, 17 year old male playing around with netbus)? Well, of course - he opens the damn thing.
*argh*
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I recommend something simple, like, obviously having icons to click to run a program. You put an icon for Netscape on there, one for WordPerfect, One for whatever he could want to run.
How? Well, that depends.
Afterstep for Linux is very easy to do this with, and very hard for adjust later. Little chance of him breaking it by clicking in the wrong place. Disable the multiple windows, only use the button bar, remove the menu from right-clicking the desktop. The good thing is that this is easily configurable. Just start deleting text from config files and you'll get there pretty quick. Plus, it's too simple to crash (even KDE crashes sometimes).
If you want to go windows, use the default windows install, install LiteStep (an AfterStep clone for Windows9x), configure it the same way, and change that to the shell. No more explorer, no more crazy config stuff, nada. Just a button bar. Simple, easy.
With the linux based setup, you get remote admin (if something does perchance foul up, you ain't gotta drive to grandpa's house).
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
IE is not faster than any browser available for Linux. Sorry. Far from it.
Lynx! The best browser I found so far. No images are loaded by default so it's lightning-fast. You can look at a certain image if you want to (* to show inline images as links and associate zgv or other viewer with *jpg and *gif).
But the real advantage of Lynx is vi style navigation. Much easier and faster than clicking (after a few hours of burn-in). Bookmark system is the best I've seen in any browser, there is SSL patch for lynx, and it's tiny in both size and resource consumption.
There is one problem with it: some sites don't care to put alt tags on their images (note than any HTML checker will point this out as a mistake) and some sites use JS for navigation (for instance, tvguide.com). tvguide.com also runs IIS and is almost always slower than any other site i've used at ~8pm EST. Suprprisingly, I've seen very few sites that were hard to navigate with lynx.
As a side note: one of my systems is p200 and another one is p200pro at work - just to show that I'm not using lynx cause "my 486 doorstop can't handle a real browser". I use lynx in Windows as well (port is almost perfect).
It's a matter of priorities. If you're on the net to look at all the pron, graphics-centric browser is a must for you. I'm looking for information.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
Remember that old GEOS operating system from the C64/C128? It grew into GEOS on PC in the late 80s, early 90s (the original AOL software used it!). It ran great on a 8088 with 640K RAM. It was an easy-to-use GUI that was legendary in it's robustness.
Guess what, it still exists:
http://www.newdealinc.com
It's grown up a little bit - best run on a 386 with at least 1MB of RAM, but still works on 286s. It includes a complete office suite and a web browser. There's even a BASIC interpreter.
The neatest feature it has is in the control panel you can set the user's skill level on a 1-4 range. All New Deal apps follow this setting.
A friend of mine who runs an ISP has New Deal on a 486 that his adopted daughter with Downs Syndrome uses. She's able to draw in the paint program, play solitaire (actually, she just moves the cards around), types in the word processor and browses the web.
It really doesn't get much easier. And as far as administration goes - anything that would kill New Deal would also take down Linux.
Just a quick note, GEOS 1.24 (and, I suspect, New Deal) worked BEAUTIFULLY under DOSEmu. So, you could theoretically have the best of both worlds.
Have the network setup under DOSEmu route through a Linux network interface, and make ssh, etc. available for your remote admin tasks. Run DOSEmu on it, and have New Deal come up in the autoexec.bat or whatever.
Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch, but once it's set up, it should be stable. And, since it's so small, you could have a spare copy of the system on hand. You could set up a different logical DOS drive or something to save Grandpa's documents and configurations and whatnot.
Slick.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Your evengelism is NOT forgiven. I've had this argument before, consistency is entirely up to the third party developer, and I can find apps that are NOT consistent with Apple's main Look 'n Feel.
Frankly, and I've said this before, the consistency is common sense. Apple laid out this common way of doing things, it's common sense for third party developers to follow this.
So really, all you're saying is that because there's common sense in most Mac developers that the Mac is better. Hell, look at MS Office for MacOS. There's an example of third party developers NOT following the common sense policy. So please don't preach it as a product of Apple's genius, preach it as Apple trying to get developers to use common sense.
And before we can have any consistency in Linux, we need a standard. Help define it =)
You could use Litestep and VNC for remote access.
Check out QNX, you might find a use for it.
http://www.qnx.com
As the first post pointed out if you must go the Linux route instead of an iWhack (as a later poster mentioned). Why not go with the big as dinner plates window maker icons ;)
use Signature::Witty;
Give him a text-based email client, teach him IRC and usenet, and teach him lynx and screen (both of which can use vi-style home row keys, which means he doesn't have to move his hands around the keyboard as much). Put netscape on there if he finds himself *really needing* to see graphical stuff, which turns out to be less often than one might think.
"So, what do you want to hack for, Bickle?"
"I can't sleep nights."
"They got porno theaters for that."
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
may i go out on limb But if you have Win and it works and ALL you want to do is clean up the interface why dont you try Litestep You can make an interface that will verry easy to use and clean for your grandpa http://www.litestep.com
I have an elderly lady neighbor that I help, a similar situation. She is running Windows 98, and won't change because of the ads and stories she sees in the media.
I go over about once a week, because every time something doesn't work the way she wants, she starts opening and closing anything she can find. And she thinks "Settings" is where to fix (what isn't broken). Last week I found 17 copies of the printer driver, all mangled (edited with Word!) and renamed, and the original driver nowhere to be found. About and hour and a half to re-install and reconfigure.
The *nix advantage: Users CAN'T modify system files. IMHO either Debian or FreeBSD, but that's just my opinion.
I definitely recommend Gnome (October Gnome appears to be a significant improvement, but I've just installed it) for the GUI, tho, because there is a built-in app that allows users to shutdown, eliminating one of the larger hassles. You have to be root to access and enable it, but it's under user priviledges. Since I haven't changed it for over a year, I don't remember exactly where, and I'm at work and using Win95, so I can't go look for it.
Aongus
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - Lazarus Long
I've come across this one on a Linux box I had that was occasionally-up. Simple fix: use anacron. In Debian, at least, just install it, and it takes over the funcitons of cron.
It just does an "as soon as possible" scheduling. If you turn your computer on in the morning, it does the cron daily stuff soon thereafter.
I have to agree with this one. I mean, you already paid for a copy of windows with the laptop, its it presumedly already installed and all of your components on the laptop work with it (Linux laptop support can be somewhat sketchy at times), seems like you are attempting to make things needlessly complicated here.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Why not let him tinker away and learn how to reinstall a system when he messes it up? It's what I did with my mom...
you could probably get away with that with some people, but there are others who really only want to get on, check email, and get off. if it gets more complicated than that, they don't want any part of it.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
The Finder itself can be kinda confusing too, and the Mac OS is not a "make you stupider" design like Windows 9x, so your grandfather might even find it harder in that respect.
However, there are a couple of options here. First, the Finder (in Mac OS 8.5+, I believe) has an option called Simple Finder. I'm not sure if it's available in a Control Panel, but you can get to it from the Mac OS Setup Assistant. Plus, one of the view preference choices is to make all icons into buttons (kinda like AtEase). Another choice is to set yourself up as an "admin" user under Mac OS 9 and your grandfather as a user with much fewer privileges. He might even find it easier with Speech Recognition under Mac OS 8+ to "Open Nisus Writer", "Open Navigator", and "Open My eBooks Folder" instead of using a mouse or keyboard.
1) You open your home directory by clicking the desktop icon. You drag some files around, then open some other application. A few minutes later, when you close the other application, your home directory window has disappeared. You click the desktop icon again and there is a new file with a dead-smiley-face icon, labeled "core."
Isn't there potential to waste a lot of diskspace with these things? On a machine with multiple accounts and a fair bit of memory - say a school classroom workstation with 30 pupil accounts - then you couldn't you easily fill the disk with a 256mb or more core file in each home dir?
+++++
+++++
The harder you look the less you see. That's what we're up against.
don't lie..you know you like macos
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
With Macintosh/Windows, they can go into a store, buy a game, take it home, put the CD in the drive, close the drive, click 'Next' a few times (as per the directions that magically pop up on the screen), click 'Finish' and have instant access to a new piece of software.
and then you state:
If your "grandpa" isn't downloading and installing a bunch of 3rd party crap and device drivers from the 'net (like most of the windows slashdot demographic), most of his crashes will be uptime-related
So the good thing is he'll be able to install third-party stuff, but if he does, it'll make the computer crash?
It's not just stuff off the net that can cause problems for Windows. Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 (the last Microsoft anything I purchased) was not compatible with Microsoft Smartdrive caching. (This was back in the 3.11 days.) I lost the contents of an entire hard drive to that little bug.
One final point:
Sit someone down in front of a PC that has had zero computer experience at all. There's NO way they are going to ever be as proficient under Linux as they could be under MacOS or Windows unless they have some Linuxhead do the installation of software and administration for them.
But, of course, that's precisely this situation; someone is going to be doing installation and administration.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
As I've responded before, let the Interface Hall of Shame disuade you of the opinion that Windows, MS apps on Windows, or third party apps on Windows are consistant in their user interface. That being said, it is difficult for any OS to enforce consistancy of third party apps.
From other posts (I agree)
Large screen low res. -- easer on the eyes
Simple desk top with app icons
My thoughts
No extra stuff, no xeyes, no clock, no xload
Simple 1 color background (gradiant maybe)
Change Icons to things that make sence to the
user.
Pencil for writing
book for the web
Telephone for phone list...
UPS with autoshutdown.
Simple shutdown from desktop.
Simple backup... 2 harddrives auto backups
Dialup for you to dial in.
Directons on the desk top (I have made
Custom desktops with directions write there)
Lock it all down so that the only things
That can change are the user files
Back it all up so resotre is easy for you
Have fun
policy editor? in win98?
where is that exactly?
The Mac OS has had accessability options built in since at least System 7. Closeview allows for screen magnification and various mouse and button settings geared towards people with limited dexterity. The newer Mac OS versions have speech synthesis and recognition built that, coupled with OS 9's "panels" metaphor would make a perfect grandpa workstation. But if you've already purchased the hardware I don't know what to tell you.
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
Much as all tech people seem to hate it, this is exactly the sort of situation where Apple's At Ease desktop does well: you have no confusing options, and you can't screw it up. Obviously this is not going to help your situation if you've already bought your hardware, but having set up my own grandfather a couple years ago with an old Mac IIci and AOL, At Ease on used mac hardware is an inexpensive solution I can recommend for others.
It really is a question of, how easy is it to control apps and access, and the ease of installation. The Mac solution is simple: It works out of the box and, with MacOS 9, you can set the user to use "panels" which is like At Ease. The user boots up and sees a panel with LARGE buttons which represent applications or documents which he has access to. The Mac solution to installing programs is simpler by far than any other OS. Insert CD-ROM. Double-click CD-ROMs icon and double-click installer. Windows 9x still suffers from software developers who want people to "go to start menu, enter drive letter for cd-rom, then colon, then run "setup.exe"... c'mon how much more archaic can you get??? When you insert a CD-ROM into a Mac, its icon appears immediately (wow! they even have names!!). Your hard drives aren't some letter, they're names like "Macintosh HD" or "Hard Drive" or whatever you think it should be like "Grandpa don't click this." Since Macintosh has built-in speech synthesis and speech recognition, your grandpa's commands can be used to control computer functions or the Mac can dictate documents, alerts, etc. AppleScripts can easily be written to automate functions on the system and Macs have always had the great ability to turn itself on and off at scheduled times to run scripts, applications, can automatically sync with time servers.. damn, you name it.. it can do it. Heck, it can even tell jokes to your grandpa using its Speakable Items scripts.
Read all about it
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
With MacOS 9 you can set up the machine with an administrator and a normal user.. your Grandpa could be setup as a "limited" user, with panels that contain buttons for the apps and folders that he can launch, with no access to any other parts of the OS. And, if you're any kind of programming guy, you should be able to write AppleScripts to automate any task that you see fit. Besides, there is no PPP to mess with once you config the machine initially. Just type in that info beforehand and the Mac with memorize these settings and autolaunch the dialer whenever your grandpa clicks on Netscape or whatever.
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Set up AfterStep and customize a nifty wharf, he'll thank you for it...
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
Well, that's not entirely true. LiteStep offers more complexity, but it is up to the user how much they actually utilize. Go to one of the major theming sites and look at the 'minimalist' themes availiable. you can have a desktop as simple as a popup menu and a clock if that's what you need. And, since it is so scalable, you can use it to mimic pretty much any other UI out there.
Who are you and what are you doing here? What you just described is our idea of a fun weekend.
Get rid of your life or something.
:-)
-
I believe Apple sets forth a guideline to it's third party developers, called the Platinum spec or something similar. It defines the look and feel of apps, keeps them consistant and helps give a baseline for shortcuts. Smart. Apple has always been able to leverage their single-mindedness towards software to benefit the end user.
You can configure it so you don't have to log on with Linux. The downside is that everything runs as root, so it's easy to break. However, *any* OS that doesn't give the user a chance to log on will have that problem.
With a little work, you could configure Linux to assume that the person sitting at the console is a certain normal user (as opposed to root,) but why bother when all you have to say is "This is your username and password, use them to log on." ? He's in his eighties, he's not stupid.
Why should I have to go to all that trouble when KDE does it all by default?
And you just can't tell me that you can set up a UI just as simple as FVWM using MSWindows.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
And then he has to figure out complicated stuff like "Licence Agreements", what directory he wants to install it in, what section of the "Start" menu it should go in, etc...
With Linux, he just has to download the RPM, install it with GNORPM, and then run it from the pretty menu item.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Linux can be set up to be *significantly* easier to use than Windows. I'm constantly hearing "Do I click once or twice?" "When do I have to right click?" etc.
With KDE, this problem goes away, you left click to activate something, right click to get a context menu --- always.
With FVWM and a little bit of creativity, this can be made even simpler. (ie. See, there are the buttons on the back, for all four apps you're using, click them and it'll happen)
With Windows, or even a Mac, you just don't have enough configuration power to configure the complexities away.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sorry to hear about your problems, AC, but I don't understand, why, if you're new at linux, you decieded to download it off of the net.
Please, if you're new at linux, don't download it off the net. You will run into no end of problems and aggravation, even if the download completes successfuly. It's far better to pay anywhere from $50-$100USD for an official boxed set of your favirate distrubition than to have to put up with a lot of headaces and not to have the manual and support there to help you.
I recomend Red Hat, but that's the distrobution that I did the most research on. Really, there are no major diffrences between distros, just pick one that you're comfortable with, or just pick one. The diffrences that are there are minor, and the boxed distros have the OS, manual, some form of support, and a truckload of applications and other useful software, so they're really the best choice for newbies.
I have set up a linux box for my father (52) and the experience I've had is that icons together with easy applications is a good choice. If the net connection is a dial-up one create an expect script that dials the ISP and make it response insesitive. If your father clicks to often it doesn't matter. Create another icon for shutting it down. Now Netscape is a good choice for mail and browsing. It has an easy interface. For text, I suppose you mean simple letters so nothing like Emacs or Lyx is necessary. So create an icon on the desktop for netscape and a text editor. And set the resolution to 640x480. That should be a viable solution for your father. And one more thing remove everything else on the desktop.That singles down malclicking and confusion. So when you father wants more "power" just create an icon on the desktop. (CD player...) And remember use graphical login with user: grandpa pass: grandpa :)
Sounds morel iek you're concerned with YOUR not knowing how to use Windows than his ability to learn. Quite honestly, it is possible to lock Windows down enough to prevent the computer-illiterate user from screwing things up. Leave Windows on there, just so they can call the company and get tech support. It honestly does work (_my_ grandparents are in the same boat).
Win98 is simply not very reliable.
:P) My longest uptime is 21 days. I run INTENSIVE apps. photoshop/premiere/dreamweaver/netscape all @ the same time. This shows that the OS can really take a beating & keep on goin.
I disagree. While I'm not one to normally shout & rave about an M$ product, I must say: it's all how you configure it. On my win98 box now, I've done a few things that increase stability by leaps & bounds.
1st, I removed IE by using 98lite(98lite.net). This solved a TON of problems.
Then I replaced explorer.exe w/ Litestep as the shell. Granted, this machine will never have an uptime of a linux box(49days is the cut-off, bleh!
I doubt grandpa will do nearly as much as I do on his machine, but I think windows will work well for him. Plus, what if he joins a senior citizen net group? Odds are they're using some flavor of windows. he'd feel left out. There are a lot of seniors who are on the net, & if they wanna exchange files, etc. He'd be left out due to the fact that he's using something that would clearly be among the minority in this group.
Tom
We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. -- Ben Franklin, July 4th, 1776
curses. I closed the italics tag..oh well :)
We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. -- Ben Franklin, July 4th, 1776
This is exactly why the computers I donate to my mom's 4th grade classroom run Linux, with XFCE as the GUI. The last time I got a support call was 10 months ago, and the "problem" was fixed by taping a "do not turn me off!" sign to the machine's case.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
check out the rescource kit, included ont the cd...
i have walked down train tracks, walked down train tracks, drunk at 3 a.m. it not magic, it's no great trick, w
My point is that, as many have already said, just because he's old, doesn't mean he's an idiot. Hell, maybe after a year of using Linux, he'll want CVS access or something. Ya never know.
"Although I'm personally a fan" = "Although I'm NOT personally a fan"
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Remote administration? Is he connecting via
an ISP that permits inbound telnet? Will
he have a static IP?
What do you plan on administering? Are you
going to telnet in and vi his bookmarks file?
And it is utter nonsense to say that it's meant to give you more complexities. It's purpose is to give you the power to configure windoze GUI anyway you like. Just set it up as to have no Wharf, no popup menus, only plain simple icons on the desktop (which cannot be added/substracted or otherwise modified). Something like, say, "Click me to Browse the Net!". He will have to get point-and-clicky to browse the web anyway, or are you planning to put him through Lynx?
I have set up such configuration as a temporary measure to keep lusers from messing around with some public machine that was used to look up a the library's intranet, and it worked out so well that we never switched to Unix as was originally planned. And you still get to install whatever Windoze program your grandpa comes across and would like to try out. The only downside to this is what others have already pointed out -lack of remote administration. But if you happen to live nearby, that's a nice excuse for paying the old folk a visit
+Raider of the lost BBS
Hate to burst anyone's bubble, but Linux is not the answer for the casual home user.
This seems obvious. I know from experience, however, that it is not. An example: an ex-girlfriend's little brother set up her computer for her. It was a 486/66 with 8 MB of RAM -- not too bad when she started college in 1994, pretty slow a couple of years later. Anyway, I stepped in to fix it up in 1996, I believe. She had mentioned that she never used her computer because it took too long to boot. I was suspicious but took a look at it.
He had Windows 95 running on it. As if that weren't enough, he had a lot of stuff running on startup. A lot of stuff she was never ever going to use. And, yes, it took over five minutes from switch on to being able to do anything. It was awful. (As an aside, he had this huge tray of a main board with onboard SCSI controller: it could only run her chip at 33 MHz. He had an 800 MB hard disk in there: her BIOS had the 500-something limit. Doofus)
Anyway, I found a copy of Windows 3.1, put Word 2, Netscape 3, and Tera Term on there, and she was good to go. She actually did papers in her room again. (Of course, the next time he saw the computer, he "fixed" it, but that's another story.)
The moral of this long-winded story? Don't set up a computer with things that you want/need/think are cool. Put on it only the things that its user will have to have.
I wouldn't go that far. It's certainly not a bad thing, and definitely not pathologically manipulative, to want your nearest and dearest to be running a decent computer.
Nor are many octogenarians going to be using a computer at all. You aren't denying someone tech support (more to the point, you're setting up the computer to require little if any tech support) from their peers if their peers aren't going to be offering support.
Likewise, I don't think that the "community of users" argument follows. It takes an effort to seek out and belong to any community, and most people who aren't geeks really have no desire to belong to a community of computer users. The extent that they *will* belong to a community of users is through things like email, will be with people whom they have pre-existing social relationships with, and it'll be primarily social, not primarily technical.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
I second that. I recently built and gave my grandmother a PC. It's only a 15" monitor and even at 640x480 with 14 point fonts in Windows she sometimes has problems seeing things on the screen. I want to get her a bigger monitor, but that'll be a long way off (as I can not afford it myself)
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
You can configure windows to do that too! It takes two seconds! In any case, Windows is much easier because of the consistancy of every app. Especially if you use all Microsoft programs(word for writing, outlook for PIM, etc.) And AOL for internet, the interface hardly changes. Go all MS and you won't have any problems. (I am not an MS zealot, but give them credit for doing the whole interface thing well.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
you can turn active desktop off, you know?!
i think you just made that up mate :)
what if "grampa" wants to take things a little further? like installing software for helping his crossword puzzles or a 3D garden designer?
./configure, make, make install.? whats that? 2.0.23? oh shit you need to rcompile your kernel.."
"well gramps, make sure youve got all the required libraries, run
alternatively go to PC world and pick up a bargain from the windows "home software" section...
yeah, linux is good for the GNU generation, but not the Gnold.
That's what I'd use, but I would also implement the single click hack for the dock. (I think it's on the WindowMaker page.) Many people find double-clicks to be a major problem when learning computers. Big icons/fonts are a good idea, too.
Now, I can't honestly say, because I've never actually used it, but I have a friend who swears up and down by Be. He says it's the easiest thing that he's ever used, the only drawbacks being lack of hardware drivers and software. But it sounds like the intended user here isn't going to be running everything known to man. You've already bought the hardware; see if this sort of solution could work for you. And there IS the iToaster (which is BASED on Be), which should be all set up with drivers so you don't even have to worry about that.
Anyone more informed here? I'm going on second hand info.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
hahahah you are so right :P
linux doesnt give you the "segmentation fault at memory location 0010010x" errors. if anyone out there has ever tried to explain this type of error to an older computer user it is very difficult getting them to understand that microsoft products are buggy and produce errors which shouldnt be there. (not to say linux is bug free, but you will have less explaining to do with linux).
:)
also linux doesnt "unconfigure" itself like microsoft windows does, and linux doesnt corrupt itself like microsoft windows does. both of these will give you headaches in the long run if you set a new computer user up with windows. after about two months they will be asking you why everything is so slow, and why does this icon not work anymore, etc.
this is where linux is good. you can set everything up, and the user cant screw anything up, unless he/she shuts the machine down improperly. this is probabally your greatest weakness because new computer users have a way of shutting things down improperly. so make sure you educate the user to shut stuff down right, because fsck'ing for a new user is very confusing.
now for a distro, i have heard caldera is very nice and easy. but even if you use like redhat6 or 6.1 or mandrake 6 or 6.1 or any other distro that boots into X, you will be all set.
you can set up icons for Staroffice, or Applixware. then you can set up icons for the web browser, and email. you could also set up some other icons for cd-player, icq, gaim, acrobat reader, realplayer, solitaire.
then leave all the rest of the applications under the start button. this will give the user something to explore on their own.
this is basically all i did to set up linux for my happy irish friend seamus, who had never really used a computer before in his life, and now two weeks later he wanted me to go through a reformat and clean install just so he could experience how to do it.
In the end you will have two hardships to over come.
1). the shutting down thing.
2). the whole idea of a file system. while this is not a hard concept to understand, but for a new user it is really foreign and needs to be explained. especially if they are gunna use linux. it wouldnt hurt to pull out a piece of paper and draw the file tree and then use kexplorer or some other file manager to go through the file system with them and show them where their home directory is etc.
I would say "Go With Linux" at first. However, what happens n months down the line when Grandpa gets a bit more comfortable with his computer and wants to download programs from the internet? While there certainly is no shortage of Linux apps out there, is he going to think to look just for them? So he tries to download such-and-such an app, and can't install it. Then will he wish he had Windows? Maybe not.
"A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye." -- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
icewm + dfm !!!
Linux, as it stands now, is much better for someone who only needs to connect a printer and do a little word processing than for someone who needs top-end hardware support such as USB and use of all the capabilities of the new high-end graphics cards such as the Matrox G400. I know that people are working on this, but right now Linux is quite easy to use and lacks much of the hardware support you get with Win32.
I found this wonderful link which I don't know if anyone has mentioned.
This package has some cool features like MouseKeys, Magnification,
and on the fly Video Mode Changing from a control panel. It is aimed at helping people with disabilities to use Linux, but it might be helpful in this situation as well.
I found this at http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/accessx/
A link which I also posted about earlier, but I feel should be mentioned again is the window managers page at http://www.plig.org/xwinman
This page has screenshots and ratings of what different window managers can do.
You might want to check out the site
http://www.plig.org/xwinman
It's got a lot of comparisons of different window
managers.
I personally prefer wmx, but I wouldn't suggest it for this as there is no way to do button panels.
When My 84 year old father bought a new computer, he was mystified by all the icons and features in windows98 when all he wanted was a word processor, a spread sheet and a web browser (also some graphics tools for my mom). I got him Applixware at the local Best Buy. This came with RedHat5.0 which I installed for him. The NextStep clone (Another Level?) was perfect for him! I set up a few buttons on the wharf (side strip) for bringing up ppp, shutting down and netscape and set up xfm and tkRat (for email) to come up on login and he was happy as a clam. I think this is a very good solution for the simple user with very few needs.
"pull my finger" - Uncle Chuckles
As many have pointed out, it's not exactly as clear cut as you are saying. A lot of people value reliability over the other factors that you stated.
If it's really clear that this man will be just doing email, some web browsing, perhaps a bit of word processing, why is Linux wrong for the job? It's sounds like it is extremely unlikely that his needs will ever require him ever even to run a setup.exe.
Use what's most efficient for the task.
Linux is a flexible environment. With a little work, which includes this kind of research, configuration and experimentation, it could become quite effective for the class of users that this man's grandfather represents.
I disagree. If all that our person of interest is going to be doing is surfing, word processing and sending email, Linux is a great solution! It can be setup within maybe 2 hours and configured remotely when needed. Far better then Windows which has a whole whack of bells and whistles that don't work when something new is added.
I guess flexability is key here.
-- iNFRARED
Quite a lot of grandparents might well prefer a human visit or a voice down the telephone to having your computer talk to their computer.
If remote admin is really so important, just put Back Orifice on a Win98 system.
...I for one would go as simple and as big as possible. Other posters have said use a Mac, which is cool, but you've already invested in a PC. Someone said to just leave Win98 on there. I disagree.
If I may be percieved as [insert politically incorrect root here]-ist, your grandfather comes from a time where when you bought something and it didn't work, you took it back. I think that with even the simple apps that he wants to use, Windows in not the best choice. How will he react when it BSODs out of the blue? Even if it only does it once, how tough will it be to explain the problem to him? Will he be willing to accept it?
I would recommend an extremely stripped down linux box. Pull out everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) he doesn't need, want, or will never use. Set the resolution to 600x800 and decide on a WM that has support for big buttons and maybe tool tips. Have the box boot directly into X, or teach him how to use the CLI. If you're having him use the GUI, put big, single-click buttons on the desktop. If it's something like Gnome with a start-esque menu, remove as many things as you can.
If you decide to go the CLI route, map all of the programs to simple commands: netscape starts the browser, office starts Star Office, mail starts the mail, help brings up some general man pages, bye makes it shut down. Maybe hack some maintenance tools that run on shutdown and pipe the output to a file that you check periodically.
Either way, keep it simple. Keep it fast. Don't do anything he isn't comfortable with. It will save both of you time and headaches in the long run.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Disclaimer:IANA*OXG (A Am Not A *nix Or X God)
Ummm, how hard is it to bypass that? A friend of mine runs Gnome on RHAT 6.0. Boots right into Gnome. I watch it. The LILO prompt comes up, goes away, and the Gnome login box is right there. How hard would it be to go:
Name: grandpa
Password: grandpa?
So, we have successfully booted to the GUI. How hard is it to have single-click icons to launce everything? How difficult is it to set up window widgets along the title bar that go something like
Close Me
as opposed to
_ox?
I think that with a little work, the system can be set up in such a way as to hide *all*of the intricacies of the wm, the OS, and all of the other stuff it takes to make the system go.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
After typing Netscape , he still has to learn
the basic concepts of the GUI (in this case X/your_favorite_wm).
A voice of reason in this chaos! I agree with you 100% (cept for that 100% reliable stuff :) The way you set it up is exactly how me and my fam set up a win98 box for my grandparents. Quick, ez, painless. They love it now. Play lots of games etc.
Works good, no command line, Not even kernel messages during boot to confuse them! (cause you know it would!)
K]ÏMWý©±Îï$ [½5>VÎG Û 1 ر/M îåMA$ÚT
Absolutely. Wharf nailed to one side and trimmed to just the apps he needs, app size locked not to cover the bar, pretty picture on the desktop, maybe right-click on the desktop to change that picture; seems pretty bulletproof.
mac's get much fewer viruses than any other system, are virtually impossible to hack into remotely, and if you have virex set up to auto d/l definition updates, chances are you'll never have to worry.
that exactly why I said they should just buy an iMac!
see, i've always been under the impression that you never learn about something or are always afraid you'll break it UNTIL you break it. Let them be daring, let them be adventurous, and then when it breaks the first time, allow them to fix it all with you sitting next to them and set it up once... from that time forward, if they ever get into a jam, they'll know that they're capable of fixing it themselves. people never learn ANYTHING when you take the mouse away from them and do it yourself. They learn when the person sitting next to them is patient and walks them through it. A bunch of you probably know this from TA'ing back in college. You're specifically told not to take the mouse away from someone, not because you're doing their work so much as the next time they have the same problem, they will never know what to do. I'm sure thing guys grandfather would appreciate it more and would feel better about using the machine if he knew that when he broke it, he could also fix it.
your second point about being more comfortable when you know you can't mess it up... I disagree for the same reasons. I think people that know nothing about computer don't care about whether you reassue them that they can't harm the thing and are more timid when you tell them that. They're convinced that nomatter what you say, they will be the cause of it breaking. That's why when for some weird reason the computer is acting strange, the first thing they say is "oh no, what'd I do? I must have broken it!"
And about the icons... if you want icons, get a mac, plus you have less to worry about in the way of killer viruses.
and to that I must say "get an iMac!"
Sounds like you want a highly standardized, easy-to-use, zero support enviroment, right?
Why don't you consider BeOS (www.be.com). It has all the features you mentioned, it's really really really easy to use, it runs like a dream, even on an older pentium and above all, it's stable.
*Installing Windows would mean that you'd have to do a reinstall about every 6 months.
*Linux is, well, not very well suited for normal beginners desktop-use.
Why is this easier? First of all, with Window Maker, the wharf is always there. App windows won't cover it. This means that when he needs to start a program, the button is there, in easy view, not hidden in the start menu. The wharf icons don't drag around, so they're always in the same place. When you try to restart an app that's already running, the current window pops to the front; another copy does not start. (This is very important for a user who does not understand the paradigm; how many times have you had to close six copies of Word or some such because the user kept opening a new one every time?)
Windows apps are not significantly more consistent than unix apps, if you're looking at just two or three. What do netscape, Word, and Outlook share, besides the basic look-and-feel?
I think that a small install of Linux or *BSD would be perfect for this use. It's not a general-use computer, you can consider this to be more of a kiosk-type application, where you want it easy, you want it simple, and you want it not easily breakable. This is not easy to do with windows, despite what a lot of people say. It can be done, but IMHO, it would be much easier to do on a unix machine.
Another option that is simple like web TV, but is better in some ways, is the Dreamcast.
If you're going to go with a TV based device, there are certain issues present in WebTV which can make it problematic. The biggest ones are the lack of horizontal scrolling (which can really make a mess out of some pages), hard to read text on a tv screen (made worse by WebTV squishing stuff to fit), difficulty in reading small text on the screen, and you're required to use a specific ISP.
The Dreamcast's browser has some advantages here- the browser does allow for horizontal scrolling (as well as vertical of course), and has a special scroll method which doesn't require scroll bars (you move the cursor in the direction you want to go) which gives you more screen space (and may be easier to pick up for someone not computer savvy). It also has antialiasing for text, which makes it more readable on the screen. It also has a magnifier which lets you rollover any section of a page to see a magnified view. It doesn't require a specific ISP (although Sega is pushing AT&T as the preferred ISP).
There are certain features which WebTV supports which Dreamcast doesn't, and vice versa, but if the objective is a simple device just for Internet use, the Dreamcast may be worth looking at.
(and just to clarify, the Dreamcast browser is _not_ based on Windows CE)
I have gone through this process with my wife and a couple of friends, all much younger than your grandfather and all of whom were going from typewriter era to gui. I can attest that the mouse based interface is one of the hardest things to learn if you haven't grown up with it. That being said I think Mac would be uniquely difficult since it is so maximally graphical. What worked well for my wife was a DOS setup with a text mode, keybord driven menu. It has only about 4 entries for the programs she uses most, and the only troubles have come when she has to use a "modern" gui based program.
I imagine you could do something like this in either linux or win 9x with a little clever scripting. Finally, based on my experience the earlier advice of using text based apps (pine, lynx etc.) seems good.
From one of our Veterinarian friends: "If I were meant to play with a mouse I would have been a cat!"
Linux is not for newbies people! The entire linux supporting community wants the average joe bob to use linux, but people are NOT ready for it. Or rather, its not ready for them! Give him windows 95 or 98. Strip down all the extra crap, install word 2000 or 97 or whatever, and internet explorer.
:)
NOT AOL, no matter how much of a newbie, AOL is too simple and i am led to believe it actually makes you stupider. Let him learn netscape or IE (and well, netscape for 9x currently ~= buggy shit, so give him ie). win98se w/ ie5 has a crash rate of 0% when you 1) use it properly and 2) set it up properly. otherwise give him NT if you hate 9x. but remember its for him
rabababoa, the advocate for orange pop. linux has its uses. your grandpa's system isnt one of them.
flame me to hell!
I have had the pleasure of setting up lots of different computers for people. One thing i noticed is that when i set my mother up with an imac, she had trouble finding people who had used macs often enough to help her out. me included.
I couldn't walk her step by step through the menus from memory, as she was getting started. I could merely say things like, "i know that there is a monitors and sound button, i think its in the apple menu somewhere." This is especailly important because i ended up explaining things over the phone or icq. So if your gonna support an OS for a newbie, make sure you know it by heart or have a machine you can poke around on to figure it out yourself.
anyhow, i use linux for my business, and the entry level techs take alot longer to get a copy of linux up and running, then they do to get NT up and running. Much to my disappointment.
Smiles/.
Windows is about as consistent as linux as far as the interface goes. How many different keyboard shortcuts exist in different windows programs for the same exact function, like quitting the program, for example. One program might have Alt+F4 (a poorly chosen shortcut) for quit, another might be alt+f+alt+x, another might be ctl+q etc.Microsoft themselves can't even standardize shortcuts between their apps. Then, for things like selecting menus, the menu selection for configuration information (i.e. 'preferences')might be under the edit menu in one program, some weird menu in another program. No consistency whatsoever. I think the guy should return the gateway and get his father an imac.
If you want true consistency, get a mac. Macs have consistent menus, consisten keyboard shortcuts, and consistent programmers. My apologies for the evangelism, but the mac is the only one that has had developers who have never blasted GUIs and has a long-standing tradition of making consistent, easy to use interfaces. If you don't believe me, fire up a mac and take a look for yourself how similar many applications are in the way they behave. Linux might eventually become as easy to use as a mac (windows certainly never will) but the linux coders need to have a major attitude adjustment before that will happen.
Enlightenment dr0.13.3 kicks ass
Windows: Downsides: Unreliable. When something goes wrong, he can't fix it and will call you. Has to shut down before powering off (It was wise to do that even in Win3.1) You can't administer remotely. Viruses. Upsides: Plenty of software available. Hardware more or less guaranteed to work.
Imac: Downsides: When something goes wrong, he can't fix it and will call you. You can't administer remotely. Your web browser choices are IE or IE. Upsides: Can't get any user friendlier. Apple put a lot of work into their interface and it shows. More reliable than Windows.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Just wanted to post my two cents in one area that I don't think has been covered yet: application stability. Yes, Linux is a much more solid OS then windows. But Grampa is going to be spending much of his time with this computer surfing the Web, using a browser. On Linux of course that means Netscape. Even being an experienced computer user (I design web applications for a living) I have at times found myself frustrated and filled with rage as Netscape 4.x for Linux crashes yet again. It just isn't stable, and in my opinion a web browser that crashes unexpectedly and often is unacceptable. Grampa is going to be confused, or at least annoyed, and when all of a sudden his browser dissapears completely. Linux is great, but Netsape 4.x is not. I don't have any experience using Netscape on a Mac, but my experience in both Windows and Linux says that it crashes far to often. If it were my descision I would go with Windows and IE, just because of the browser stability. No, I don't like Microsoft, but in this case it's the best bet.
After reading everybody bicker about MacOS, Windows, Linux, BSD, BeOS, ad naseum, it is emminently clear that none of them fit the bill completely. All of them have many flaws, many of which are shared by all.
None of the OSes above are designed for this purpose. They are all "general purpose" computer operating systems. What this user needs a simple narrowly focused operating environment that performs a limited set of tasks and is very forgiving to the neophyte. Allowing them to turn the machine on and off, not self destruct or give arcane fsck, scandisk error messages, illegal operations, i/o errors, etc., etc.
Such a system does not exist to my knowledge. The closest product aimed at this "market" is the iMac, love it or hate it. However, the iMac is still a general purpose machine which is far more complicated and tinker-prone than most naive users would like. I liken the computers of today to automobiles of the first decade or so of this century. The potential is clearly visible, but be sure to have a good mechanic at your bekon call, or be one yourself.
This whole discussion is an issue of perspective. We all take for granted a certain level of computer understanding that we deem obvious. Computers will always be hard to approach as long as we approach them for everyone the way we approach them for ourselves.
Just myNot everyone needs to be a computer-geek, just like you don't have to be a greasemonkey to own a car. I have a car so I can DRIVE, not because I like the concept of a motor, or enjoy getting dirty and grimey tweaking it.
I have taught older people how to use computers. Some of them need a few days just to get comfortable with the concept of using a mouse correctly. Plus you need to be concerned about their eyesight and coordination. Ever hear of arthritis?
My 63 yearold mother is a newbie, and has NO interest whatever, in HOW the machine works. She just likes the things she can do with it. If at somepoint she does get interested in how it works, then we'll deal with that, but the idea that the first thing you do, is explain how to install linux to someone who could not tell the difference between a memory DIM and a harddrive is frankly, stupid.
If they're at the level of saying something like
>"oh no, what'd I do? I must have broken
> it!"
then I seriously doubt the first idea that will pop into their head, is "humm, lets boot off a floppy, run fdisk to see what the partitions are, and reinstall! Dang it, where in 'tarnation' did I put that blasted Debian CD!?!"
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Microsoft won't even admit that there ever was a 16-bit Bob :)
However it is doubtful that will remain true. If your grandfather gets comfortable with the computer, he'll start noticing software packages that will let him do other fun things. Examples include tracking investments, budgets, clip-art, a sailboat simulation (or whatever) program, a landscaping program, etc etc. You can lump all games into this as well. The list is endless. Your grandfather will see these in the stores and SOMETHING is going to catch his eye. Bet on it being a Windows program.
Then there is the new hardware he might want to buy. Gee, everything says things like "Windows 98 required."
Right now Linux is an up-and-comer OS, and ultimately it will make inroads into the Windows desktop marketshare. But not yet. For the average user who wants to be able to buy a wide range of software at the store, Windows is currently the best choice.
I saw a computer whilst I was out shopping for my geek's ration of clothing and in the department store I saw a computer set up to display online buying of ladies' shoes (DO NOT question my sexuality at this point, I played with it because it was a computer). Upon investigating I noticed that *EVERYTHING* was hidden. There were 2 icons in the start menu (Help and Shoe-Salesman or whatever), and nothing to speak of on the desktop. Seems like you could give your grandfather an NT box configured like this and let him bang on it as much as he wants without doing anything to it. Yes, you have to learn basic window-handling skills. Yes, even old people are capable of learning these (I taught a 95 year old woman in a nursing home how to use her "fully-capable" Compaq in a couple days). He won't, of course, be beyond getting stuck, but at least you could considerably narrow down what could have him that way. On the flip side, he gets winders, which lets him run the apps everyone at bridge is running and gives him the moderately-consistent interface that actually does help productivity, while being quite a bit higher up the foodchain than 98 stability-wise. He does lose the USB device support/DVD movie watching support, but I imagine when he is ready for these he is ready to have the rest of the computer at his disposal. If not, set Win2k up the same way when he gets his Christmas goodies.
Game... blouses.
There is one overwhelming reason why one should consider Linux for such a naive user - the same reason I plan to turn my computer-illiterate cousin loose on a Linux system - she's gonna ask _me_ for help. Not the manufacturer, not any user group, not MS, not the cute octagenarian across the street. And I don't care to try to talk her through some ticklish and ultimately futile piece of Windoze trivia - even presuming I could figure it out, which half the time I can't in Windows. With Linux I can telnet or ssh in, do what needs to be done, and get out faster and easier for ME _and_ for my cousin.
I've had experiences quite to the constrary... I've wasted entire weekends helping friends and family who've completely trashed their pc just by trying to "make a little more space." I can think of at least 5 people I know who have been through this... one is my brother... I've wasted a great deal of time with all of them. Not to mention those like my mother who tend to run into virii... These problems only happen if you have an OS which lets an novice user run in root mode. (Windoze, MacOS, BeOS, etc.) If anyone is going to use a PC at home, and they don't know what they are doing... I'd suggest finding a friend or relative who knows how to setup linux... it's worth it! As for Window Manager, KDE is great for a typical user, but for this person's grandfather, not having luck with the WIMP model, why not just have a xterm popup with a bash script menu? 1 for netscape... 2 for Wordperfect...
I just wanted to add my agreement here. My 68 year old father-in-law got a new PC last year with a 17 inch monitor (his previous monitor was 15 inch). I was trying to sell him on running it at 800x600 so that he could scroll less. No sale, he was thrilled using 640x480 and having everything larger on the screen... it was easier on his eyes, and he considered this to be the advantage of the larger monitor.
simple answer.....get KDE (www.kde.org) for linux, it will make it look all nice and purtty.
Hello,
About a year ago I was in the same situation. At that time my grandfather was 81 and needed a machine for checking his stock portfolio. In addition, he wanted to do email and my grandmother wanted to do some word processing. Basically, he had been hearing about these computers changing the world, and how much money Microsoft was making... he wanted in.
My father and I fixed him up with a top of the line Pentium plenty of RAM, printer... the works. we got him connected with a friendly ISP and even wrote some simple documentation explaining how to do everything he wanted.
We packed the machine up, drove it 5 hours to his house, hooked it up and put him in front of the box... we even took 2 days to tutor him in the use of the machine. The idea of a mouse, and windows were very difficult for him to understand. not to mention connecting to the internet was tricky at best(old wiring in the house).
he mailed us the machine back in less than a month.
The machine turned out to be an embarrassment for him... its not fun trying to learn to use one of these things, especially when your getting older.
Our final solution was Web TV. HE LOVES IT. He checks his stocks and writes email. nothing more. He feels good about it since he's on the "information superhighway" and everything is going great.
PLEASE don't put Linux on his computer... unless you plan on maintaining it and want to embarrass him. (don't get me wrong... I LOVE Linux...) if you must have complicated machine, choose something that is *SIMPLE* and doesn't fail often.
-CG
Well... you could use one of those ATX cases with no power switch, just a big suspend button. When grandpa hits the suspend button again, Voilá! in 10 seconds the system starts as he left it yesterday.
Linux is great for all those techies and wanna-be techies. But this is going too far. Just imagine if something goes wrong, he wont be able to fix it. Give him an iMac with both MacOS and LinuxPPC and let him choose...
If/when she wants a good computer, I'm going to point her to a dell or local shop that will give her technical support along with the computer.
Good question, I don't think there's one true answer.
I put a launcher for kppp called dial-in and another for netscape. Her email is web based and that is her home page.
Everything is written down in a notebook. I told her to never power down her machine, unless she absolutely has to.
It's not a perfect setup, but it is functional. I'm able to send and get email from her, so it counts as a success :-) I'm absolutely positive that she is no more computer literate than your grandfather!
I find that Window Maker is very easy to use. Make a menu for what programs your grand father needs to use, and remove things like xterm or pine that might happen to be in the menu. Click once on the screen to bring up a menu of 5 things is very easy not to mention the button gui that goes over the windows!
Try Red Hat 6.1, it has the best GUI for newbies and a simple installation program.
Afterstep is easy, fast, and intuitive for newbies... Your dad will really like it... Afterstep is what I used when I was learning about GUI for Linux.
I am going to try and not just repeat what has been said, but will summerise to make my ideas clearer.
It seems everyone has an argument for your favorite window manager. I would be inclined to go with one of the more static ones, like fvwm and not KDE (It is flexible, but could be awkward in the same way windows and a Mac are).
If all this machine will be used for is Internet and writing, Linux is great. He should never need to know about the inner workings, and it can't be screwed up (easily) from a user account.
If he uses the computer a lot, and wants the ability to expand and do his own thing (and you trust him not to mess up the computer), you might want to consider the imac.
My feelings are the Linux works very well for the person who mearly wants a reliable computer for a small set of tasks. It is easy to learn (from a user point of view, not admin). It is also unlikely to get any viruses and such.
If the user wants to move into doing more, install their own programs and stuff, then Imac or windows98 are the best choice. I don't have a stance one way or the other on these OS's, I have very little experience with recent version of MacOS, and dislike Windoze, but nontheless linux isn't ready for this group.
I don't see any need to discuss the group we fall into.
i would go with WM on a kde machine just warf all the apps he would use, and it would be a hell of alot easier to teach him then windows,
The angle of the Dangle is equaly proportional to the heat of the beat. ---Beavis
I think web TV was designed for exactly this use.
IMHO. Your best bet would be KDE if you insist on Linux. It's a stable platform. You can configure a simple desktop for your grandfather with shortcuts to ease access to his favorite programs. It also has easy Internet browsing built in just in case Netscape is too much for him. It's is very easy to use and very easy to customize. While I'm not a big Windows fan. It's still the simplest OS for the average user on the PC. But it can also be as complex as X/Linux.
If you want a quick easy solution then there have been lots of good ideas; webTV, iMacs, BeOS (?) etc..
However if you happen to be after a little project to keep you busy then you could make a better system tailored for his needs using Linux. It would however be a LOT of work.
I'd suggest that you hack WindowMaker so that it's Dock can only be modified by editing the config file - and set it up as grandad needs it. Turn off all the root window menu's etc.
If you wanted to address the problem of it all going pear shaped after the next power-cut - put as much as possible on a bootable CD; then setup the harddrives so that automatic backups are made onto other partitions - if the CD detects a problem on bootup it can revert to a previous state.
If it's basically just webbrowsing and mail that you set up then after a LOT of effort you'll end up with something not unlike a WebTV. Hmmm....
Perhaps only a project for those with far too much spare time; or grandads with more complex requirements.
At Ease for the Mac, commonly used in K-12 educational settings, hides the entire desktop if you want, and replaces it with configurable buttons to run just the software the admin chooses. A password can be required to get to finder and do OS stuff. I have never found misplaced or nested system folders on Macs that were protected with this.
Since when do malicious users go distributing CDs to elderly people? I think the actual threat of this is really nonexistent.
I do agree with you that the ease of installation under Windows can be bad, as in the case of BO/Netbus, which I have had to clean from my roommate's computer before. This is compounded by the nonexistent security of Win9x which allows that trojan free reign over the computer.
It really is a tradeoff though. Ease of installation versus security. You can't very well make it as easy to download and install programs in linux as it is in windows without losing some of the inherent security.
Realistically, a non-techie linux user shouldn't need more than what's provided by the linux distro, and if there was a nice windows-setup type interface for a package manager (maybe there is and I'm ignorant, feel free to inform me) it could work quite well.
Just my thoughts,
-Ted
Geeze, the guy is old but that doesn't mean he's an imbecile. He might actually catch onto this Linux thing with no trouble and start posting a bit of his earned wisdom on Slashdot!
Anyway, you might consider doing a very simple TCL/TK app to present an uncomplicated user interface under a normal X environment. That way, as Gramps steps out a little, he can start to experience a little more of what the environment has to offer.
I did a similar app to simplify life for Windows and Mac types who need to use centralized apps on a UNIX system. I was a newbie to TCL/TK but was able to slap it together quickly and it did the trick.
Good luck!
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
I've set up Afterstep with a few buttons for Netscape, Word Perfect, et al. for a friend who was not computer literate at all. She like it a lot. It's stable, and is difficult to change around accidentally, which I find to be an important characteristic for people not used to a gui.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Many senior citizens (esp. in the US) are on very tight budgets, this is do to many reasons.. and i wont rant on that one. So why would you want turn your grandpa/grandma onto an OS that will inherently cost them more and more for new features?? Linux is coming of age my friends, and there really is no remarkable reason people can't use it as a home OS.
The Problem With The Gene Pool Is That There Is No Lifeguard.
If you *have* to use Windows, then Litestep is a great way to go. Admittedly I am using an older version (.23e) but I have been able to "baby-proof" computers with it and it will actually make windows more stable than without it (faster too...I was given a Win98 machine at work and I noticed nearly a %100 performance gain after installing Litestep, mostly to do with that #@$#%^ active desktop crap)...
I personally setup a leftover system from my house for my grandfather right before I started my freshman year of college. I put Windows 95 OSR2 on it because I had assembled a computer that could run it and it seemed the simplest operating system a basic user could start with. My grandfather only needed to write, read, and print e-mails. That's all he uses it for. He's not a power user who needs the most efficient system in the world. He used it for a few weeks before he got himself a book about Win95 and he configured his computer to do just about everything he needs it to do with about 4 clicks of the mouse. He's running on a 486 SX/25 with 32 megs of ram and he hasn't complained once. His computer moves at his speed and is easily adapted to suit his needs.
It is lightweight and simple. http://www.xfce.org
Everytime I reinstall new versions of distros (currently RH, was slackware in the old days) I usually rib down the system and rebuild it with _only_ the needed functionality...
Running processes when I've booted:
- xfs
- xdm
- sendmail
- wwwoffled
- Xfree86
(+some others that the kernel "own")I also remove most virtual consoles.
This is an advantage to me even if I am quite computer literate, I also aim for ease of use in the GUI,... when I actually do work... it is extremely effective... because enlightenment,... "remembers" where I want my different windows and such...
Perhaps it would be an idea to supplement the distros... redhat, suses, debian etc. with a standard "computer-illiterate-guest-user" .. and a special... trimmed and ribbed user-workstation runlevel?
I agree... Ive been using windows for years & havent found it to be near as bad as the slashdotters make it out to be. After reading all the anti-ms stuff on here for a few months i finally went & downloaded a couple of distros of linux (redhat and caldera) & found it was at least ten times harder to use & never could get it to operate properly. Redhat only booted once & then wouldnt get past the login screen for some reason. Caldera wont see my modem or network card & doesnt recognize the ram on my video card correctly. Of course most of this is probably my fault having never been a linux user before. Then again there was a time i had never been a windows user before. I have set up windows on systems for my brother, mom & gramma & uncle, all of which are still happily using their m$ os with no probs. I wouldnt even consider for a second trying to set one of those people with a linux box (especially since i cant even get it going right) On a properly configured machine with high-quality hardware win9x is a very stable os, i havent had near as many problems with it the folx on slashdot have (not since i tossed that %$#$% cyrix in the trash anyway) put down m$ all you want, its still the best damn os ive ever used i would love nothing more than to wipe my hd & put linux on there for good, but im not going to do that until its at least half as useable as windows
Windows 95 should get the job done. Netscape is your best bet as far as web surfing goes. Probably the best thing I can suggest is to place all the important shortcuts (WordPad, Netscape, etc.) on his desktop, that way he won't get lost clicking through menus for the app he wants.
--
Well, I have the auto-scnadisk running disabled, so that can't be doing much to help. I am using FAT32 in win98, but I was using FAT32 partitions in win95 as well. The improvement seems to have happened when I installed the win98 upgrade, not when I converted my partitions (I did that a while ago with PartitionMagic). Any other ideas? I'm frankly somewhat mystified (but it's a good thing nonetheless)...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Perhaps a Win3.1 system might be better. On modern hardware, 3.1 starts up fantastically fast, and the hard drive is far less likely to be hosed if you just power off (and 3.1 won't nag on the next restart). Netscape is still available for 3.1 as is software for all the other rudimentary stuff you want the machine to do.
Go with what works. That's always the best solution.
Is it really worth all of this construction? With Win98 there really isn't all that much damage done if they just hit the switch. I mean if you want to spend 3 or 4 days burning CD's, setting up your logging system, filesystems and configuring applications and desktop for your grandpa so he can use an OS that isn't really any better suited for his tasks than the OS that's already on his system, feel free. I don't understand why Linux users are always so masochistic when it comes to this sort of thing. Set him up with something he can use and won't take you a week to install.
but why bother when all you have to say is "This is your username and password, use them to log on."
Or "When you see the screen asking for your logon, just type 'go.'" No password needed. *shrug*.
I'm also pretty sure it'd be a small matter to hack up xdm/xlogin/whatever it is and just have it automatically login without prompting.
I've been using BeOS for a while now, and while typical "control panel" tasks are handled very nicely, application installs still have a bit of work, and typically require some Unix knowledge to get right (as most everything I've seen is done in Unix style).
There is a difference between expressing pride and trying to use something for tasks for which it's not yet suitable.
Windows is already there. Windows works as-is. It's trivial to buy software and get it installed. It's almost as trivial downloading Setup.EXE from the web and installing programs from the Internet. These fundamental tasks are nearly impossible under Linux without you there helping.
I too have nothing against Linux. In fact, I'm *usually* the one out there advocating for Linux instead of Windows or Macintosh, but there ARE tasks where Linux is not suitable, and I believe this is one of them.
A lot of you are refusing to acknowledge other operating systems as feasible alternatives for a task when it's precisely the opposite mentality that opened yourself up to using Linux in the first place. Use what's most efficient for the task.
But the idea of sticking with whatever OS comes with it is probably a mistake, since the machine probably came with MS Windows.
It has a lot to do with the time-cost of making the change.
If you have 6 hours to blow replacing his operating system with a basic function Linux, or 3-4 *days* as some people are suggesting to spend time doing a major stripped-down-custom-configured Linux system for him, that's fine.
I can't possibly imagine any additional productivity he would gain from your insistence upon Linux than over Windows or Macintosh that would even remotely outweigh the time you invested setting that system up.
So if there's no appreciable productivity gain for him, it's simply "techie pride" that's forcing you to force Linux upon him, not any desire at all on your part to give him a "better" system. I think that was what he was trying to say. Basing an operating system decision upon what you think is "cool" and the amount of flexibility that operating system gives *you* is not good way to make a decision. Use what's best for the task, where best != what you like most.
don't want to have to drive a half an hour, just to fix an icon or something.
That's why you tell them, "check out the manual and the help pages and see if you can figure it out." Do you honestly think they'll be able to figure out a symlink issue under Linux before they'd figure out a similar problem under Windows? Please...
If you really want your friends to think of you as their "sysadmin" instead of "the guy that set up my PC," that's up to you. I personally set up machines so that the people using them are free to customize them as they need and can learn, break and fix things on their own. What people are proposing here for Linux make that impossible (or at least very difficult, especially considering the learning curve for Linux administration).
I think we're straying away from the major point against.
Sure, you *can* do all of this nifty automation and scripting for Linux, but do you really need to? Is it really worth all of that effort for such a small gain on grampa's part? Chances are, the differences he's going to notice between learning a stock Windows system (or one minimally configured to remove unnecessary icons from the desktop or start menu) and your souped-up-AC-ified-mega-scripted Linux system are going to be negligible. Plus, with the OS he has on board, he has an OEM he can call if you're not around to answer the question (and, likely a CD to re-install the OS back to its original factory defaults).
Can't you people ever have a real discussion on here without calling people that disagree with you a "moron" or "idiot" or "asshole"?
I'm thinking it's time to raise my score threshold to 1...
Now for the alternative
Things may seem perfectly logical to YOU, but your average computer novice will disagree. With the current desktops, everything is abstracted to simple, easy to learn objects, each with its own functions. Contrast that with the current state of Linux. For someone that "knows" computers, sure, Linux is going to be logical in places, once you learn the basics. The problem is that learning the basics under Linux takes considerably more time and effort than learning the basics under Windows.
Once you know the basics in Windows, it's very easy to start branching out and learning other aspects of your system. With Linux, the learning curve remains high and undaunting.
Yes, but installing the operating system would be just as difficult with windows as with Linux.
/exec it which installs a back door of some sort (granted, it will likely only be under his user, unless it makes use of a root exploit straight away).
The operating system is already installed on the PC. The only work involved would be to dump it and install Linux. That alone should be a factor in making the decision to switch. It's already there, and it works as-is.
And, is it a good or a bad thing that things install easily? What happens when "some malicious user" makes a CD which auoinstalls a nice little virus? Grandpa things "Hmm.. whats on this CD" puts it in the CD-drive.. and wham.
As another poster mentioned, this is pretty far-fetched. People don't go around breaking into homes and putting trojan CD's on elderly folks' desks.
Yargh. NO! If its something I really HATE its trojans and autorun functions. I've been cleaning some hundred dmsetup / netbus infections the last year (maybe thousands).
This is psychological, and any halfway-decent virus scanner would detect these attempts regardless.
Again, I have never in my life had a computer virus or have been "backdoored" by any form of trojan. Just tell grampa to take heed to the warnings about unverified software that IE spits up. Again, background virus scanners work wonders in these situations as well.
You call that stable? I don't have problems with my computers except hardware trouble.
So what? My personal best is about 130 days with my Linux system (currently at only 49 days). "Grandpa" is going to be turning his PC off when he's done using it for the evening. Uptime doesn't mean squat in this instance.
The background virus-scanner needs to be updated.
Not all good coders are part of the OpenSource gang. My virus scanner updates its data files automatically over the 'Net at pre-arranged intervals.
Furthermore, what if old grandpa decided that "chatrooms" (irc..) is a nice thing, and what does good old grandpa do when some chick send him a "video of herself"(in reality, 17 year old male playing around with netbus)? Well, of course - he opens the damn thing.
We can come up with all sorts of hypotheticals here that would leave grandpa's PC vulnerable REGARDLESS of the operating system.
They could just as easily DCC him some script or program, have him
You think Linux isn't vulnerable to tricks like this? It's not a virus, no, but it can be just as unpleasant.
In case you haven't figured it out, Linux provides no tangible benefit under this situation to using Windows. If grampa never wants to learn or expand anything further about his operating system, there is virtually no gain either way for him. There is a loss, however, in administration time on your part.
It all boils down to "techie pride". Lots of people just HAVE to install Linux everywhere because they think it's cool. You're blinding yourselves to the pro's and con's of Linux and refusing to acknowledge acceptable alternatives.
In my opinion, this makes for *poor* Linux advocacy. If we keep advocating Linux for unsuitable tasks, people will begin to notice this and it will leave them with a bad taste in their mouth. Promote Linux where it will excel.
Oh, please.
I'm fully aware of what Lynx is capable of (I've recently discovered w3m, which is much better, in fact).
Unfortunately, you only attacked one point I was making for IE. The remaining points (superior CSS and XML rendering abilities) obviously still stand.
The day that Lynx renders graphics, CSS, does XML and does it faster than IE in a more standards-compliant fashion will be the day I use Lynx for my daily work.
That's not going to happen any time soon.
There's a major problem with this thinking. I don't know about StarOffice, but Netscape for Linux crashes if you even look at it funny. So, the 3x5 card stops working if he alt-tabs and Netscape never comes up...
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Mainly because it is intuitive and harder to mess up, as (last I checked) it comes with no GUI configuration tool to be accidentaly clicked on.
Just make a backup of the ~/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep directory so that if it does get hosed some how, you can just copy it back over. If you would like help setting up Afterstep, you can mail me and I'll help you with the config files.
And, while I love Linux, for the less computer literate, an iMac might be the correct solution. Logging in and out can be an alien concept to people. Not to mention error messages in Linux are usually scary (ie. messages that begin with Panic:).
This sig is false.
Hmm, if you want a "Community of Users", I think MacOS would be my first choice. Linux would be my second. Maybe BeOS would be the best solution - at least once Mozilla becomes sufficiently viable to work with it.
Windows wouldn't even be on the map - the only thing I know Windows users have in common is frustration.
D
----
There are a million downsides to any OS. The minute you give someone Windows, they'll be calling you up because they can't get Gadzuper 99 running on their computer. Of course, it only comes in a Mac version. Or you give them a Mac, and now they want to install a Windows program. Or they just *have* to have this cool program. But it only runs under Linux.
You can't have everything. Especially when it somes to applications. For an extremely "idiot" user, where they just want to do a limited number of things, I'd put applications far down on the list to evaluating a solution. Near the top I'd put, Can the user easily get "lost"/corrupt the system, and can I easily maintain it.
-Brent--
Grandpa doesn't want to *do* anything with the OS. He wants to surf the web, get e-mail, and other similar standard applications. Grandpa isn't interested in the registry, he isn't interested in virtual memory, or other settings. He isn't interested in installing software on his own. He just wants a computer that he can turn on, click an icon, and go.
The Linux How-To's are a joke when used by a complete newbie, and most of the computer articles in the newspapers,Grandpa doesn't want to learn become a system admin, for heavens sakes. He just wants to get his e-mail and surf the web. He's not going to be reading any how-tos, or even any books on Windows.
Use whatever is best for the job. In my personal experiance, Linux isn't exactly the most user friendly OS, which is what your Grandfather would need.In this case, Linux is best for the job. Set up KDE with the icons on the desktop. Grandpa turns on the PC, clicks the e-mail icon, and reads his e-mail. *That* my friend is real user-friendliness. He doesn't have to worry about breaking anything, because Linux has real security. And when something breaks, or he wants something changed or added (which will happen on Windows too), it is a simple thing to remotely administer a Linux box.
Which is summed up as, Grandpa will be happy, not only because he can do what he wants, but also because he can call grandson to keep it that way with no hassles.
-Brent--
What benefit does litestep give you over the regular WM? Litestep is suppose to give you *more* complexity, not less.
Second, you still have to problem with no remote administration tools.
-Brent--
No, and I don't expect them to fix their problems with Windows either. There are 2 types of people. People who want to learn the OS, and how it works and stuff. And people how don't want to (and shouldn't need to) know what to do when something breaks.
For the first group of people I'd teach them Linux. And for the second group of people I'd set up Linux, configure, and support it for them.
-Brent--
Actually, this is the most important "feature" an OS should have that is going to be used by newbies. If I am going to get a friend set up on a computer to do e-mail or something, I don't want to have to drive a half an hour, just to fix an icon or something.
2) Complete lock down of all necessary components so that Grandpa can feel free to go crazy on the computer and be assured that it won't break.I give friends who want to learn Linux a telnet account on by box. One of the first questions they ask is, "What if I break something?" Ah, for those used to Windows, the concept of not being able to cripple the box as a normal user is a strange on indeed. I tell them that if they are able to mess up the box, they have advanced past the novice stage :)
-Brent--
It is kinda weird that he'de choose Linux before he had chosen an interface, so you sure have a point there.
But the idea of sticking with whatever OS comes with it is probably a mistake, since the machine probably came with MS Windows. Windows is very bizarre and totally unsuitable for casual users, so I can understand why his first instinct was to put something else on there.
Since he apparently had some reason for not getting a Mac, it looks like the x86 platform needs an OS with a user interface for "normal" (non-geek) people. Apparently the iToaster folks think that BeOS is there, and a lot of people are suggesting some Linux answers too, so it sounds like things worked out ok.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's already there. This is probably the best reason. Sure, you could show us all your nerdly prowess turn your Grandfather's really cool new flatscreen PC into a Frankenstein's monster, but would that better? Everything you need is there now, and there's little to be gained by a move as drastic as ripping and replacing the OS.
:) (Agreed)
I don't usually disagree with people just to disagree, but let's play devil's advocate here. What is there to be gained?
reliability Let's face it. No matter how carefully planned and installed by the Gateway folks, Win98 is simply not very reliable. The guy's grandfather is more likely to become frustrated and give up if he's faced with an illegal operation exception five times a day. (Not unusual with any Win98 configuration)
Hardware Issues. The Gateway Profile, while not a laptop, uses laptop-ish hardware, and would similar challenges to Linux on a new laptop. Linux is very good, but it still has a ways to go before it's for serious laptop use. Keep in mind that things like ACPI and USB won't work, and things like sound not work for a long time, if ever. He might really enjoy a USB camera for Christmas!
True to some extent. USB may or may not work, some experimental support is available in the Linux kernel, but few, if any drivers for devices exist. However, USB support might not be an issue. Sound should work on at least a partial basis if it SoundBlaster compatible.
He will actually be able to get Gateway folks to help him so long as the software bears some resemblance to what they shipped.
True, but is grandpa likely to call Gateway for technical support? I think grandpa's most likely to call our illustrious poster, and expect him to fix it. If he's more comfortable with Linux, then there is a real advantage to using Linux over Win98.
In general, don't change things unless there's a *good* reason, and figure out how *he* would like it to before you start the serious twiddling.
That's the most intelligent response I've seen anyone on this thread say...
My journal has hot
I totally hear you, reciently I've been trying to help and ender man learn how to use his computer. (He has a win95 machine, and I'm just barly getting to the point where I can set up myself with a decent linux config) And I learned all kinds of things from teh questions he asked. For example. How exactly do I know when to single click or when to double click? It always seemed quite obvious to me, but in retrospect its really difficult to explain. I finally gave up and told him to double click if single clicking didn't seem to do what he wanted :( hehehe
From a baseline (i.e. no computer knowledge), there is probably no difference in the ease of learning Windows or Macintosh or Linux running X11.
... everything has its place, and -- GIVEN THAT EVERYONE ELSE IN GRANDPA'S LIFE PROBABLY USES WINDOWS -- you're going to have a hard time convincing me that anything but Windows is the right choice.
Here's the catch: the above statement is only true in a vacuum -- i.e. no other computer users around.
Out here in the real world, Grandpa is going to have access to A LOT more help with Windows than he will with Linux. His neighbors, his pals at the senior center, the cute octegenarian across the street, TECH SUPPORT AT THE OEM, etc. -- practically everyone EXCEPT his well-meaning Grandson -- is going to be using Windows. They will be able to provide some form of feedback for Grandpa. Grandpa will be able to be part of a community of users (perhaps frustrated users, but a community nonetheless). That means it's going to be a lot easier for grandpa to get help with Windows.
Probably the ONLY person who is going to be able to help Grandpa with Linux/X11 is Grandson . . . so unless Grandson has some deep-seated psychological need to make Grandpa dependent upon him and isolated from any of his computer-using peers, he would being doing Grandpa a favor by leaving the Gateway set up with Windows instead of installing Linux/X11.
Wipe off all the icons from the desk except the Windows applications he needs to use (what? a word processor, an email program, and a web browser?). Set those Windows applications so their default save/open directories are all pointed to C:\GrandpaDocs or whatever. Boom. Next to nothin' for him to learn. Click on an icon to start the program, open the file, do the work, save the file.
Linux is great. I've set it up several times, I use it, and when I use Windows I sometimes even run Emacs or the Gimp on Windows.
BUT
fixion
I hesitate to think what these users (a particularly impressive bunch -- where do you work?) would do under these situations, all of which an out-of-the-box RH 6.0 will do:
1) You open your home directory by clicking the desktop icon. You drag some files around, then open some other application. A few minutes later, when you close the other application, your home directory window has disappeared. You click the desktop icon again and there is a new file with a dead-smiley-face icon, labeled "core."
2) You click the foot menu and go to "pick an app that wasn't installed by the sysadmin." You click the list item and nothing happens.
3) You come in one morning after a power outage and the computer is on, at a login prompt. Many services don't work right: you have no sound, CD-ROM, and/or impaired network functionality. You call your sysadmin over, who types:
lsmod
insmod -a
Now stuff works again.
4) You want to cut and paste from Kedit to Netscape, from Netscape to Gedit, or from Gedit to Kedit.
Make no mistake, I love Linux and I try to get it used where it will shine. But as a desktop it's strictly for power users and hobbyists like you and me, unless it's locked down and minimalized to a degree that makes my hackles rise regardless of the OS being controlled.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Just keep/put Win98 on it. It does everything he wants it to do, and has the added benifit of lots of books and sites about it. The Linux How-To's are a joke when used by a complete newbie, and most of the computer articles in the newspapers, which your grandfather might read, usually deal with Windows. What's with the ego thing that everyone has to use Linux? Use whatever is best for the job. In my personal experiance, Linux isn't exactly the most user friendly OS, which is what your Grandfather would need.
granpa can tell which is easier.
bring him to your computer (or it to him) and let him look at windows (emulate if you don't have), linux (load up a couple of different wm's), and emulate macOS. Then ask him which he thinks would be easiest to learn. Assuming you're relatively competant, you can set up any of the above systems easily for his needs.
And for those of you that are talking about locking him out of config stuff, granpa will always find a way to blow it up. on any system. so you might as well have an os that someone else can help him with if you're not around.
----- --- - - -
jacob rothstein reed college
I don't want to be a naysayer, but Linux just might not fit the bill in this case. Although I'm personally a fan of the cutesyness of the Mac OS GUI, I'd have to say I would suggest it over Linux or Windows. Heck, install BeOS.
The Mac/BeOS is simple enough that one can turn the box on and off and not have to worry about what's going on under the hood. Your grandfather should not even have to know what "log on" means.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I really hate to ask this, but why would you even consider an OS other then windows for this specific user (80 year old grandfather). I bought a system from Dell for my grandparents and I found that Windows 98 works well for them. I simply bought them some step-by-step books and put everything they would need on the desktop. This allows them to do everything they bought the computer for without having to navigate any folders or file systems. And after a brief explanation of the notion of "C:", they began to understand how to install new programs (well, games) that they bought in a store. Of course they have called me or emailed me with questions, but they're usually easy to answer.
So in my personal experience I would just say go with the direct mail order flow; that way he gets the tech support and all the other "hey, look at this cool feature" goodies.
-thanks
Is it some techie pride that you must install Linux everywhere possible?
And what, exactly, is wrong with "techie pride"? In most fields of endeavor, pride in your work and those things you are familiar with is thought to be a good thing. You know, Pride in craftsmanship.
Is this some subtle kind of anti-geek bias here? Don't think for a minute just because you are a geek that you don't look down on them (and yourself).
I think wanting to try and meet an unusual need should be encouraged rather than jeered at from the sidelines. Must we surrender the beginner's desktop to MS or Apple or wait for some big corporate sponsor to do the work necessary to make Linux easy-to-use for the beginner?
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of pieces that can be put together here to make a system that's just the thing for Grandpa. Let's see how it works.
Just a few things.
1) where do you work, those people sound like utter morons. I deal with 100's of users a day, most of whom are college students and staff though so the clue level is around average.
2) I recently gave my father (50) a new machine. I never put a second thought into puting win98 on it. All the reasons have been stated already. (I dont want to be tech support all the time, Its actually more stable then some of the zealots here believe, As long as you are just using it for web surfing and the occational word processing session your fine.)
3) My father jsut went out a bought a new digital camera (USB) what if ol' grand-dad does that? There is no support for all the varients out there. And no tech support in the world will try and help him with that. Also what if he wants to use something like quicken??? or maybe something else??? What about going to sites that require a plug-in??? The win98 machine can do this ok (not 100% but ok) the linux machine........well no you have to manually do some stuff.
Bottom line: It aint broke, dont fix it. Any OS requires the requisite training. Spend the time training him now, or face a myriad of headaces later.
-Lord Shadow
you need to remote admin grand-dad's computer?
you need to lock down all nec. components so he can "go crazy"? So now you're treating dear old grandpa as a 5 yr old kid or an invalid. Why not let him tinker away and learn how to reinstall a system when he messes it up? It's what I did with my mom...
Or why not just buy a macintosh? you plug a few things in, and it's all icon based. Set up the desktop with aliases, and if it breaks, you can teach him how to fix it without having to go into command-line. really, an iMac or iBook is IDEAL for these situations.
honestly, there are some things that a pc and linux are good for, and this just ain't one of those situations. consider the alternatives.
I need to amend this... I re-read the original post a little more carefully...
You didn't mention which OS was on the Gateway, but I would assume it is win98. There is no reason that you cannot configure the desktop so that it has only the 3 or 4 icons that your grandfather uses.
The standard X-variation GUIs are just as hard to learn as Win98, and still require the user to know such things as windows, scroll bars, maximization and minimization.
Stuart
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
First of all, I'd like to point out that I am NOT hugely experienced with Linux; I have played with it a little, but I have been an OS/2 user all my life.
I was recently asked to do something similar to this for a friend's father: all he wanted was a simple office suite and e-mail and the web. In the end, I just got a spare 486/66 with a 100MB disk and put PC-DOS 2000 and Windows 3.1 on it then added Calmira (http://www.calmira.org/) to give it a Win9x-like look.. I also did things like adding WIN to autoexec.bat then, after it, adding
echo Please switch me off now
ctty null (lock the keyboard)
Calmira is fairly flexible; you can disable all the fancy stuff and just have some nice big icons on the desktop and a shutdown button, which quits Windows and takes you back to my locked-up DOS.
I put on MS Works 3.0 (since we had that lying around and friends would be able to support him with that) and Netscape for web browsing and e-mail; to dial up I installed IE4 with as little as possible just to get the built-in dialer thing (which is quite nice, BTW).
The end result is a very easy-to-use system which is fast and simple - he seems pleased with it.
Just a thought.
While it might not seem the easiest thing to start with at first, maybe the command line might help?
If the whole window/desktop/menu thing's not working, than I'd reccommend simple bash. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say you should try to make him become an expert unix command-line guru, far from it. It just seems that, rather than trying to get him to accept the abstract concepts of a particular GUI, it might be simpler to just say "Okay, type 'Netscape'".
-Denor
It's not often I say that Windows may be a better alternative to Linux, but I think that Win98 may be a suitable choice for a few reasons. The scope of your grandfather's computer use, to my understanding, includes surfing the web, reading e-books and typing. Here's why I think Windows would be the better choice:
My experience with people who have never touched a computer is that the more times you have to click and/or the more things you have to type in, the more turned off they are towards computers. It's like the more they have to click, the more they have to remember. The more they have to remember, the more they have to work, which sometimes will turn someone off to computers. Not everyone's as into computers as us /.-ers. ;) My point with this is make the interface as easy as possible. For example, if he wants to run something on a CD, chances are he won't want to type:
# mount /mnt/cdrom
He'd probably rather just click the D: icon.
Of course, there's the obligatory once a week BSOD that comes with Windows, but I don't think it'll matter to him that much.
Also, I'm not saying you shouldn't look into other systems like iMAC etc... I just haven't played with them enough to talk about them.
This message was posted using recycled electrons.
Tried this type of thing for my wife's computer a while back. RH 6.0 with KDE, worked fine except you must be root to mount floppies and she's learned over time to back up everything to floppies. Had to go back to NT Wks 4.0... Main rule K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid) I love Linux too, but for some situations it's "not ready for prime time". (Now if I could just get my dang IDE burner to work under Linux... email me if you can help on this one; jmduffee@intellex.com) Jon
There's a very simple phrase I was told by someone when I tried to pursuade them to go with Linux:
KISS
(Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Although I took the time to learn Linux through setting it up to do all the things my personal computer could do (connect to the internet, word processing, playing sound and MP3s, etc), the one thing I learned is that even if you set up a simple KDE desktop with what's needed, you'll REALLY intimidate someone if you set up something as complicated as Linux (that is, compared to Win9x).
Win9x would do the trick, but in all honesty, I would have gotten him a Mac. Simple, reliable, and not the least bit intimidating for older aged people.
Since the person asking the question did not once mention "Linux" in his question, I'm somewhat confused as to why the title of this Ask Slashdot is "Basic Linux Systems for the Home User?" Unless Cliff's biases are coming into play here, I don't see how this question could be interpreted in that way. The poster is asking how to set up a good system for his grandfather. He does not appear to care whether it is Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, or BeOS, as long as it works nicely. That's the proper question to ask anyway - asking "how do i set up a easy-to-use Linux box for my grandfather" is a stupid question, since you are unnecessarily limiting yourself to a single OS which may or may not be the best choice for the situation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I've set up Linux running WABI running Juno, for my grandmother. She uses it for email only. I have it configured to autologin and start X windows with KDE. It's running on a 486-66, so I had to "trim the fat" in the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and other init scripts to cut down on the 2 minute plus boot time.
/var/log and /tmp, etc. dirs weren't getting cleaned out. The disk was almost full to start with, and she ran out of disk space after a year of use. You'd probably want to setup something to clean these up at boot time, so this doesn't occur.
She's had trouble navigating the K menu (icons too small, even at 640x480, for her), but the panel icons are okay. So you'd probably want to put all regularly used icons on some kind of panel or the desktop, so they are easy to get to.
Other problems she had: She shuts the machine down every day and doesn't use it late at night, so the daily cron jobs never get run. This means the
Another problem she had was, for some reason, the date got set to the year 2007 (don't ask me how, she didn't have root access and I didn't have RedHat's timetool set up so she could use it). Juno refused to run. She couldn't change the date back because of not having root access. (Well, I walked her through it over the phone).
I now have made "wish" suid-root so she can run the timetool script, and have put an icon for it next to the clock on the KDE panel. (I would use sudo or super, but my zip drive got "click of death" during the trip to her house so I couldn't get the files off it).
For those saying an iMac or Windows would be easier, I disagree. For someone at this level, an iMac, Windows, or Linux will be about the same to them, assuming everything they need to use is already configured. No reason X should get screwed up if you aren't installing anything or messing with the hardware. My grandma has run Linux for a year, with only the above two incidents occuring. You probably couldn't say that for Windows.
An iMac would probably be fine, but, at least in my case, cost *was* an issue (you know, retired people tend to live on fixed incomes, etc.). The PC was minimal cost. I could have put Win31 on there without WABI, but I wouldn't trust it to be as stable as WABI. Of course, you could try using WINE to run Juno-- it might do that now. (I had problems with the Modem configuration, last time I tried)...
Good luck, and let me know if you have any specific questions about how to set something up...
Warren E. Downs
Life's a lot like money-- you spend it, then it's gone. Spend wisely.
1) You've never gotten a call from a relative who knows less than you do about some program, going "how do I fix blah" or "how do I make it do blah"? Being able to connect to the machine can make these questions a lot easier to answer.
2) In my experience people who are uncomfortable with computers feel better when they know the system is set up in such a way that they can't hurt anything.
3) If the machine is powerful enough to run KDE comfortably everything the user sees can be icon based. In several ways KDE appears to be easier for new users than windows.
4) If the machine is powerful enough to run enlightenment comfortably (and you're willing to expend a little effort), it is possilbe to make an extremely easy to use enlightenment theme. Rather than an X symbolizing quit program, you can have a button that says quit program - it's annoying, but no one would miss the meaning.
Some people have the personality to tinker away, and some don't. My grandfather bought an XT years ago because my father and uncle were into computers, and tinkered until he could use it. But he wasn't afraid to mess around with it. On the other hand I have a grandmother who I had trouble showing how to play solitare on the computer because she was afriad she'd break it. There's no way that she could make it through an installation - particularly not if warnings like "autoprobing may damage hardware" appeared.
If someone wants to explore, by all means let them. But if they want to try out some of this stuff, but are scared, give them a system where they don't have to worry.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
I know that you have invested in hardware already, but if I was going to do this I would have looked at something like WebTV and one of these dedicated word processors. The fact is you want appliances here, not a full blown computer. Computers of any type are unstable (yes, even Liunx - the first power failure that comes along could put the Linux box flat on it's ass). Second choice IMHO would have been an iMac. These things may crash once in a while but they have the best user interface, and don't suffer from registry corruption or fsck failures.
3 good reasons which come immediately to mind
(but I have to go so I'm not going to expand right now)
1) Remote administration.
2) Complete lock down of all necessary components so that Grandpa can feel free to go crazy on the computer and be assured that it won't break.
3) Remote administration.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
I once - along time ago - consulted for a Russian ballet dancer who wanted to write his memoirs on a computer. He had a very hard time with basic things like hand eye co-ordination with the mouse and alien concepts like the hard disk/floppy disk and directories/folders metaphor. What I did was set him up with a bunch of macros under Word Perfect and showed him _one_ way to do things. Then he would note down step by step how to do that thing on a 3" x 5" card. This seemed to work pretty well except that Windows/Word Perfect was less than perfectly reliable and recovering when things didn't work perfectly was hard for him.
I think setting Linux up so that when he logs in KDE (or your favorite WM) comes up *with* say netscape and staroffice already started would be good. One of the 3x5 cards would be "switching to StarOffice - hold the ALT key down and hit the tab key until the little box on the screen says StarOffice then release the keys." In the case of the guy I was helping key combinations were much easier than mastering the mouse to "click once on the StarOffice icon."
By the by, one of the things that I see lacking when people get into discussing issues like making a computer accessable to people like this is a lack of respect for the challenge that seemingly simple tasks can be to someone who either doesn't have any frame of reference or background to do a supposedly easy task. There is nothing, in my opinion, intuitive nor natural about using a mouse, but it is a reasonably easy skill to learn for many people.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
WindowMaker with very few appicons on the side. Have an X(or W) term button handy so when he calls you can get him to type the commands in. It's much less abstract. Also, load his favorite progs automatically on startup. Treat it like a kiosk. If you set it up properly, this could work out very well.
when someone says "windows is easier", its probably because they learned windows at some point in their life, then had to set up linux from scratch/distro...
unix is designed from the user's perspective. as an example, instead of having to know the PHYSICAL mapping of your drives (C:, D:, etc) which is rather pointless, you only need to understand the LOGICAL placement of files.
where are my files??? oh yeah! /home/grampa
next... in windows and mac, granpa can go in and REALLY mess up the system if he gets exploratory/lost... under unix, he logs in as a user, and can't delete/move/remove libraries, system files, programs, etc etc.. MUCH safer, with no manual set up required...
next... it won't crash as often. crashes are VERY confusing and VERY disturbing to newer users. they are VERY bad, and prevent people from desiring to use the computer. its a psychological thing. less crashing = good
next... security. with linux, grandpa won't have to worry about stupid things like virii, word macros jumping out to eat his system, etc...
next... remote admin. say grampa DOES get into a bind. grandson can ssh in (you're not using telnet still, right????) and fix it from home righ then and there. much nicer than a half hour drive. for both.
finally... don't underestimate grandpa. after a few months of "just" word processing and web surfing, he just MIGHT want to do something a bit more .. advanced. SURPRISE! the elderly are people too. and not as slow as some of us think. (btw, i'm 24, i'm not old. but i've met many very spry not-so-spring-chickens)
Aaron J. Seigo /. account is the day i have to admit i have a problem. =)
the day i get a
I disagree entirely -- Linux is not suitable for this task.
.. advanced. SURPRISE! the elderly are people too. and not as slow as some of us think.
when someone says "windows is easier", its probably because they learned windows at some point in their life, then had to set up linux from scratch/distro...
Sit someone down in front of a PC that has had zero computer experience at all. There's NO way they are going to ever be as proficient under Linux as they could be under MacOS or Windows unless they have some Linuxhead do the installation of software and administration for them.
With Macintosh/Windows, they can go into a store, buy a game, take it home, put the CD in the drive, close the drive, click 'Next' a few times (as per the directions that magically pop up on the screen), click 'Finish' and have instant access to a new piece of software.
"So have them download the software from the 'Net." Right there you open up a whole new can of worms. With IE and Windows, you can click on a link to an install file and get a nice window asking if you'd like to open that item. "Sure." Installation proceeds as above. Linux in its current state does not NEARLY meet the requirements of a "new" computer user or one who wants to do very simple, minimal tasks.
instead of having to know the PHYSICAL mapping of your drives (C:, D:, etc) which is rather pointless, you only need to understand the LOGICAL placement of files.
Where are files under Macintosh and Windows? Click on the "Computer" object (Windows). Click on the "Hard Drive" object (or "CD-ROM Drive" object). Click on the "My Documents" folder. This does not require the user to know anything about separate drive mappings, etc. To be fair, a suitably configured KDE/Gnome desktop can provide just as much abstraction, but this abstraction is not taken down to the application level. The same Gnome/KDE "objects" are replaced with application-specific dialogs that rarely bear any resemblence to that simplicity.
where are my files???
Inside "my computer." Inside my "hard drive." Inside the folder labeled "my files." "/home/grampa? how do I get there from here?"
next... in windows and mac, granpa can go in and REALLY mess up the system if he gets exploratory/lost... under unix, he logs in as a user, and can't delete/move/remove libraries, system files, programs, etc etc.. MUCH safer, with no manual set up required...
He can still do plenty of damage, mucking with application settings and any control panel available to him that does things setuid root. Any administrative time you specifically spend "securing" a Linux system from these kinds of forays could easily be spent under Windows marking things read-only or hidden, so they don't appear in folders. I imagine this would be pretty damn easy to do, also. Win98 even defaults to refusing to show you the contents of C:\Windows immediately.
next... it won't crash as often.
I won't disagree with you here, but a properly set up Windows system doesn't crash as much as people seem to think. I've had my Win98 system up for 12 days now, and my NT system at work (mainly due to the hard work of our PC support folks ensuring software and service packs we install are as stable as possible) has been up for not quite a month. If your "grandpa" isn't downloading and installing a bunch of 3rd party crap and device drivers from the 'net (like most of the windows slashdot demographic), most of his crashes will be uptime-related, and it sounds like in this case, computer activities will be limited in duration, allowing him to keep the machine turned off and turn it on only when he needs to use it.
next... security. with linux, grandpa won't have to worry about stupid things like virii, word macros jumping out to eat his system, etc...
He won't have to worry about these under Windows, either, so long as his activities (as the poster suggests) will be limited in scope to a few simple tasks. A simple background virus scanner is all that's required if he ever decides to get adventurous. I've never in my life had a computer virus under Windows. It has a lot to do with *how* you use your computer.
next... remote admin. say grampa DOES get into a bind. grandson can ssh in (you're not using telnet still, right????) and fix it from home righ then and there. much nicer than a half hour drive. for both
This is a good thing, certainly, but of course you assume this "bind" he's in won't prevent him from dialing up to his ISP. There are also "remote administration" tools available for Windows, for argument's sake.
finally... don't underestimate grandpa. after a few months of "just" word processing and web surfing, he just MIGHT want to do something a bit more
It's common knowledge that the learning curve for Linux is much higher than the learning curve for traditional operating systems like Windows and MacOS. Assuming you aren't foolishly disagreeing here, what OS do YOU think would entice people to try and learn more, one where they can grasp the basics and migrate to slightly more complex operations, or one where they have to study to grasp the basics to begin with? I guarantee people will become disenchanted with Linux and won't WANT to try and learn any further.
I'm not trying to diss Linux here. I use it as a small router/web server for my home network. I read my e-mail on it. I IRC from it. But people that are so overzealously touting Linux as the OS for Everyone and Everything need to realize that other operating systems DO beat Linux for certain tasks. I'm writing this message in IE (far superior CSS and XML support and faster than anything available for Linux) under Win98. I run my X apps (at the moment a simple xterm) remotely here (the Linux box has no keyboard/monitor). My roommate understands this concept as well (he has two PC's, one Windows and one Linux).
A lot of you started playing with Linux because it was an "alternative" and because it Did Stuff Better than the current mainstream OS's. At the same time, most of you are blinding yourselves with this "Linux is the best" crap that you are failing to see that there are ALSO alternatives to *Linux*, and some of those alternatives DO do things better than Linux. I see people saying "Don't lock yourself into one OS!" as a reason to try Linux while at the same time they're screaming to everyone "Don't use anything but Linux!" which is exactly the opposite mentality. Stop being so short-sighted that you fail to see when alternatives will be better.
Don't use an OS because you think it's cool and you want to be a l33t hacker cause it's what all the l33t hackers use. Use what's best for the task.
However, IMHO, Linux is probably better than Windows for someone elderly. Why? None of that -EVIL- Window Grabbing, no nausiating bleeps at any & every opportunity, no unexpected, random crashes, no random disk accesses (which can cause alarm, if you don't expect them) and few (if any) of those stupid, unnecessary application hangs.
BeOS is a good choice, for similar reasons, though may not have sufficient software to go with it. You would do well to check into that. It might also not work on your hardware - last I heard, BeOS did not do well on the driver department, but that might have improved.
*BSD is an OK choice, as they offer most of the advantages of Linux, with improved robustness and performance. (Those ARE necessary for the elderly. Possibly more so than for younger people, as they need the extra mental stimulation, and don't do well with fiddly reboots.)
For window managers, I'd say either KDE or Gnome with Enlightenment. Enlightenment is marginally easier to use than KDE, IMHO, but both are excellent and offer most of the functionality that the elderly need.
Last, but by no means least, work WITH how they think, not against. Pick a system that follows the style of the user; don't force someone in their late 60's, early 70's, to learn some entirely new way of thinking. They probably won't, especially if they have to. If the computer thinks the same way, though, it'll be easier to adopt and use.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I strongly disagree with that. I've worked with people who use a computer for nothing more then e-mail and word-processing and know nothing about Computers or Windows or anything.
Ah, the problems you have to work around. Even the paper clip stumps them. Whenever the paper clip dude pops up, they are stuck until I can come over and close it. I have to replace keyboards with ones with no Windows key. Again, when they accidentely hit the Windows key and the start menu pops up, all work stops until I go over there and get rid of it.
There's no concept of "minimizing". The application may as well not exist in minimized form. Everytime a new window pops up, unasked for, work quits until I close it. Windows is counter-intuitive. Sure, you can "learn" it like anything else, but you really don't know what it's like until you get someone to use it who's never seen a computer before and wants to do something that should be a simple task.
Nope, get Linux on the box, with icons for only the apps that are to be used. No worries about being able to break anything or get "lost". That's the way to do it.
-Brent--
I would probably go with an iMac for a grandpa type. I haven't yet seen a GUI on linux that was so easy to use that I would give it to a grandparent, although i have used some very customizable ones. The iMac is is amazingly easy to use for someone who'snever turned a computer on before. If you're worried about software it comes with AppleWorks and some other toys that give it pretty good functionality for the price. If you absolutely insist on Linux then go for AfterStep, it is customizible enough where you could probably make it simple to use. A Gateway Profile might not be thebest pick for asystem though, you can probably find a case from an old Mac (the thin ones from the really old models) and stick a Cyrix MII inside it.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Why does this ASK slashdot have to turn into a battle again?
:)
:)
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:) :) Plus if she is stuck my brother or friend can help out.
Stop moaning and write your answer/help, Michael J. Kitchin (the poster) can make his own mind up on the info he has from us being productive with our posts...
here is my answer, i'm sure you will all mark this
Mum new to PC's/internet etc.. (not of the computer age and work has "these new PC's!"
wants something simple to use and easy to remember etc..
(Some of you will scoff) Set up WindowsNT on p133 64Mb.
Locked down most i could without being too restrictive.
"Hiding" ALL non-relevent files folders does the trick too!
Put home directory in an easy place.
Made Icons/text large. (likes it that way
Placed icon on desktop for Home directory(MyFiles!).
Placed icons on desktop for programs she uses.
Sorted out colors appearence to way she likes it and is best to read/look at.
Made default save/load directory for apps mum uses the home directory so no searching!
The latter half of this i did with mum, asking her what she wanted and how she wanted to have the desktop icons layed out
Sat down with mum and watched "her use it" for a few hours, she asks questions , i answer, she writes down in a little notebook until she remembers.
I watch what she is trying to achive/do and help her advise on the most simplest/easeist way for her.
If you are helping someone new/old, dont overcrowd them with what you think is good/whizzie, understand what 'they' want to achive and act upon it in a manner that they will understand.
You cannot go mad with technology and set up how "you think they want it" and walk away, ask what they want and when you do it get them to sit with you they can tell you what they expect to do with it or how they would like to have the PC "presented to them".
You will find this svery rewarding as mum has thrown away here restrictions and now know a heck of a lot more now than i ever would expect!!
And is happier at work using computers, she even has a geek c0de
// I used NT cos its easy (cheap cos my bro is a student and uses it too). 100% reliable [THAT IS UTTER TRUTH ON MY HEART]
95/8 falls over way too much with wierd and confusing msgs and lets you delete too much
I am a linux dude, have been for years but if mum learns linux at home then it wont help her in the office it will only confuse and fustrate
This topic is more than a tecchie post its about giving easy access to computing/internet to non-tecchies. Proving the desktop AND teaching/helping them how to work with it.
ells..
Why bother with Linux for your grandfather? Is it some techie pride that you must install Linux everywhere possible?
I'd suggest just sticking with whatever OS is there and letting granddad rip. He probably won't care as long as it works well, and I can bet that the performance will not suffer regardless of the OS on the machine.
Linux is not the be-all end-all OS, although it works very well for me in my home situation. (dual pentium II-400, SuSe 6.1, C++ programming)
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
First off, I would like to state for the record that I am a big fan of Linux. I have a Linux box at home, and our servers at work all run Linux. That being said... For people like your grandfather, and actually most everyone out there who wants a home computer, they should probably stick with something simple like the iMac. Easy to set up, easy to maintain, easy to use. Simple. I would recommend my father get one. And my sister. And my mom. And most of my friends. The 3 things people want to do are: surf, email, write. Since all computers do that these days, the masses should stick with what is simplest. The iMac. I saw the iToaster from Microworkz and liked the concept, though I have heard nothing about it as of yet. The OS is BeOS based. Pretty neat idea, I just wish that a more reputable company came out with the product first. Shawn
Why bother with Linux for your grandfather? Is it some techie pride that you must install Linux
everywhere possible?
I cannot answer for the original person who answered the question, but as one who has given Linux to his own mother, his sister, and numerous non-computer literate friends, I can tell you that, yes, technical pride plays a role. I want my family and friends to have systems they can use and enjoy, as opposed to something which is crash prone, difficult to maintain, and suffers notorious "bit-rot" over time, ultimately resulting in a required reinstall. In addition, I do not want to be fielding tech support calls on how to fix this or that misfeature of Windows, especially on my time off. With Linux, I almost never get calls at all, and when I do, they are questions like "how do I do xxx?" which takes about two seconds to answer, vs. "My Windows system is broken, how do I fix it" which takes anywhere from a few minutes to a trip to reinstall the once-again corrupted OS because dll blah was overwritten by the new version of MS Office).
As an example of someone like the original poster's grandfather, I have a friend (another pilot) who was sick of Windows crashing nearly every time he tried to access the net or do serious work with his IFR flight simulator. I told him about Linux (and the free software philosophy in general) and he was very excited to try it. So one Saturday evening, before going out to Exit to party the night away, we installed Debian Linux on his system. He was on the internet in no time, at which point we downloaded Star Office and FlightGear. The Flight Simulator isn't yet usable for serious IFR work (no panel), but as a toy it is fantastic. Star Office and Netscape fulfill his other needs, and his system has never crashed on him (it's been several months now). He has said on several occasions that he will never go back to windows -- and this is despite the fact that he knows little to nothing about Linux and how to administer it, and despite the fact that his favorite flight simulator does not run under Linux (he won't even dual boot anymore to run the simulator, as he gets too angry when, inevitably, Windows decides to head south during a particularly challenging approach procedure).
and I can bet that the performance will not suffer regardless of the OS on the
machine
I would take that bet in a second. If you are using Windows, your performance will suffer with systems crashes (occasional if you never install new software, more frequent if you do) and slower overall speed, to name two. Under FreeBSD or Linux, this will not be the case. Install any one of several friendly X GUI's and the user won't care, except in as much as their system will be both faster and much, much more stable. Where on earth have you been, to believe that the OS makes no difference in a computer's performance (or did I completely misunderstand what you were saying)?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This doesn't have much to do with software config, but
one thing to keep in mind is that your visual acuity drops with
age. I'm not talking about the focus problems that necessitate reading glasses,
but rather the effective resolution of your retinas. Take a piece of paper and draw some parallel lines 1mm apart on it. How far away can you distinguish
those lines, even with perfect focus? Whatever answer you got, it will decrease with age.
The conclusion I draw from this is that a laptop is not a very good solution
for older folks. You want a BIG monitor set to 800x600, so as to make those pixels nice and big.
I noticed this when I was helping my grandfather surf the web on my mom's laptop. His eyes had a lot of trouble distinguishing a lot of the tiny user interface elements that I take for granted. (Anybody remember the old single-pixel HFS indicator on the Mac Finder?)