Dave Laird
2005-04-10 23:16:18 UTC
Good afternoon, Netizens...
I am amused, no make that *fascinated* at the fact I have just brought
another person kicking and screaming from the world of Microsoft into the
world of the Linux workstation desktop. What makes this so fascinating is
that after bringing my considerable collection of Linux distributions to
this person, and laying out before them my entire collection of
Linux-wealth, this person chose, of their own free will, Debian stable.
James, are you following me, now?
This brings to four different people whom I have personally introduced to
the Linux desktop, only two of which had even the slightest inkling about
what Linux is about, and with only one person whom I feel will eventually
drop entirely out of Linux for reasons I will state further on.
This individual has some limited Unix experience, dating back to the 70's
and 80's, but who has no previous experience with Linux. In rapid-fire
order, I introduced him to Mandrake (for its ease of use using KDE), Debian
for its incredible software collection and CentOS for its 100% compatibility
with RedHat in all its various flavors and permutations. He chose Debian,
because of its huge selection of applications and <ack! ack!> he recognized
the name.
One hour later, and this person had Debian running KDE with a full package
of Open Office and as a secondary desktop, Gnome. Ironically, he did most of
the configuration of the network (he is on DSL) by himself, unassisted, and
even knew how to configure the firewall, once he learned the strange syntax
of IPTables, which he had never seen before. When I left, he already had his
wife's Windows XP box using his workstation as a firewalled access to the
Internet, which is pretty good for someone who's been away from Unix such a
long time.
Ah yes, my one problem child in all these success stories about passing the
wealth of Linux around. I have thus converted a 70+ year-old retired farmer,
an 80+ year-old man, a 46 year-old female writer and a 55 year-old
architect, all of whom are running Linux as their primary operating system.
Of the four, the 80+ year-old man has a profound problem with short term
memory loss, one which he refuses to accept nor deal with, and because he
cannot remember even the names of applications for more than two days, I
suspect within the next six months he will probably discontinue using Linux
entirely, not that he has any business using a computer at all until he
overcomes his memory problems.
While I admit a certain fascination with Debian, given its installation
program, I would never have figured to get my first Debian user right out of
the box. I'll eat that crow now, James. 8-)
--
Dave Laird
Somewhere in the Flatlands of Washington State
I am amused, no make that *fascinated* at the fact I have just brought
another person kicking and screaming from the world of Microsoft into the
world of the Linux workstation desktop. What makes this so fascinating is
that after bringing my considerable collection of Linux distributions to
this person, and laying out before them my entire collection of
Linux-wealth, this person chose, of their own free will, Debian stable.
James, are you following me, now?
This brings to four different people whom I have personally introduced to
the Linux desktop, only two of which had even the slightest inkling about
what Linux is about, and with only one person whom I feel will eventually
drop entirely out of Linux for reasons I will state further on.
This individual has some limited Unix experience, dating back to the 70's
and 80's, but who has no previous experience with Linux. In rapid-fire
order, I introduced him to Mandrake (for its ease of use using KDE), Debian
for its incredible software collection and CentOS for its 100% compatibility
with RedHat in all its various flavors and permutations. He chose Debian,
because of its huge selection of applications and <ack! ack!> he recognized
the name.
One hour later, and this person had Debian running KDE with a full package
of Open Office and as a secondary desktop, Gnome. Ironically, he did most of
the configuration of the network (he is on DSL) by himself, unassisted, and
even knew how to configure the firewall, once he learned the strange syntax
of IPTables, which he had never seen before. When I left, he already had his
wife's Windows XP box using his workstation as a firewalled access to the
Internet, which is pretty good for someone who's been away from Unix such a
long time.
Ah yes, my one problem child in all these success stories about passing the
wealth of Linux around. I have thus converted a 70+ year-old retired farmer,
an 80+ year-old man, a 46 year-old female writer and a 55 year-old
architect, all of whom are running Linux as their primary operating system.
Of the four, the 80+ year-old man has a profound problem with short term
memory loss, one which he refuses to accept nor deal with, and because he
cannot remember even the names of applications for more than two days, I
suspect within the next six months he will probably discontinue using Linux
entirely, not that he has any business using a computer at all until he
overcomes his memory problems.
While I admit a certain fascination with Debian, given its installation
program, I would never have figured to get my first Debian user right out of
the box. I'll eat that crow now, James. 8-)
--
Dave Laird
Somewhere in the Flatlands of Washington State