Thanks:-)
In fact, maybe like you said, I didn't give her enough time. But we both have jobs to do and simply she doesn't want to learn many things. It took me since I get along with her, more than a year ago. But, well, maybe I didn't try hard enough.
Also, I was using her as an example anyway. There are still my sisters, who are just ordinary users like my gf, and mom who still confuses reset button with power button:-) Maybe I should try making a short course at home:-)
The point I wanted to make but probably didn't make it that clear was: for this kind of people, they are likely to stick to whatever they start with. If they begin with Linux then there would no problem. Linux is reasonably easy to use these days. (Notice that I didn't say that it is difficult to use, I just said it is difficult for her to change). I taught my little niche who never used computer before how to play music and movies in my Linux laptop, no problem at all.
Office is another thing... right. Unfortunately, that is what most people in my family (say, everyone except me) depending on the most....
For tabbed browsing, even I personally agree with you, there's an exception in everything anyway. I taught my gf the tabbed browsing in Mozilla. She likes it a lot. But more than often she would still use IE. Don't know why. Maybe it will just take longer time for adaptation:-)
Thanks again.
Mainstream, maybe, but not at my home....
on
Linux Going Mainstream
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I'd been a happy Linux user for years, and used it for everything, from works (scientific research) and my own entertainment (music, movies, etc).
However, things changed a big bit for me a year ago: I've got a girlfriend. Being a typical person who can uses computer to a level (M$ Word, IE, WinAmp, etc), making her use Linux was difficult. It was just simply too difficult for her. So I had no choice but to installed Windows for her. Even that, I tried to make her use Mozilla or Firebird for web browsing. That failed, too. She simply use IE whenever possible. So, forget about OpenOffice.org, etc. There are people who refuse to use any other word processors because "it's not Word", and any other browsers because "it's not IE"... (the list goes on).
That's fine with me, whatever, I can still use Linux in another partition.
But, there was a problem: I usally run process as backgrounds and I want to do that when she's using Word or we both watching movies. And having all my works in Linux partition wouldn't allow me to do this!
So, I decided to get a Mac. OS X seems to provide me a reasonably good solution. First, it is a nice and very user freindly Desktop OS, one of the most friendly out there. Learning to use anything in OS X was painless, even for my girlfriend. Second, if she insists on using Word, then there's Office v. X for Mac (even though there're some compatibility problems). Third, it's UNIX with X11 so I can recompile most of things I need to do my works.
So, while I hope that Linux will eventually become more favorable for Home Users, I don't expect it anytime soon. This is simply because, more than anything else, convincing people who don't really know anything but stick with "name" of programs is very difficult. (Ex. There are people who won't buy anything but a computer wih Pentium-brand CPU, regardless of what he/she's doing with it.)
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Wait a second, I think the parent was talking about laptops, not desktops.
n Thailand, WinXP IS free...
;-)
Not really, it's still around $3 for a copy
Thanks :-)
In fact, maybe like you said, I didn't give her enough time. But we both have jobs to do and simply she doesn't want to learn many things. It took me since I get along with her, more than a year ago. But, well, maybe I didn't try hard enough.
Also, I was using her as an example anyway. There are still my sisters, who are just ordinary users like my gf, and mom who still confuses reset button with power button :-) Maybe I should try making a short course at home :-)
The point I wanted to make but probably didn't make it that clear was: for this kind of people, they are likely to stick to whatever they start with. If they begin with Linux then there would no problem. Linux is reasonably easy to use these days. (Notice that I didn't say that it is difficult to use, I just said it is difficult for her to change). I taught my little niche who never used computer before how to play music and movies in my Linux laptop, no problem at all.
Office is another thing... right. Unfortunately, that is what most people in my family (say, everyone except me) depending on the most....
For tabbed browsing, even I personally agree with you, there's an exception in everything anyway. I taught my gf the tabbed browsing in Mozilla. She likes it a lot. But more than often she would still use IE. Don't know why. Maybe it will just take longer time for adaptation :-)
Thanks again.
I'd been a happy Linux user for years, and used it for everything, from works (scientific research) and my own entertainment (music, movies, etc).
However, things changed a big bit for me a year ago: I've got a girlfriend. Being a typical person who can uses computer to a level (M$ Word, IE, WinAmp, etc), making her use Linux was difficult. It was just simply too difficult for her. So I had no choice but to installed Windows for her. Even that, I tried to make her use Mozilla or Firebird for web browsing. That failed, too. She simply use IE whenever possible. So, forget about OpenOffice.org, etc. There are people who refuse to use any other word processors because "it's not Word", and any other browsers because "it's not IE"... (the list goes on).
That's fine with me, whatever, I can still use Linux in another partition.
But, there was a problem: I usally run process as backgrounds and I want to do that when she's using Word or we both watching movies. And having all my works in Linux partition wouldn't allow me to do this!
So, I decided to get a Mac. OS X seems to provide me a reasonably good solution. First, it is a nice and very user freindly Desktop OS, one of the most friendly out there. Learning to use anything in OS X was painless, even for my girlfriend. Second, if she insists on using Word, then there's Office v. X for Mac (even though there're some compatibility problems). Third, it's UNIX with X11 so I can recompile most of things I need to do my works.
So, while I hope that Linux will eventually become more favorable for Home Users, I don't expect it anytime soon. This is simply because, more than anything else, convincing people who don't really know anything but stick with "name" of programs is very difficult. (Ex. There are people who won't buy anything but a computer wih Pentium-brand CPU, regardless of what he/she's doing with it.)