HOW-TO: Giving up Ubuntu - a last word

[Michael Shergold]

Well good luck and take care with your Breezy upgrade.. Three weeks ago I 
was a fairly convinced Linux user but the work involved in
getting Breezy to work as we wanted, was just too much and certainly not 
for a third 'non-expert' party.  My daughter is an adult.
My son at 14 in 1980 was happily writing Z80 machinecode and selling games. 
A 35 year old working daughter in 2005 is a rather different article!!! 
Take care
Michael
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roland Harke" <Roland.Harke at gmx.de>
To: <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: HOW-TO: Giving up Ubuntu - a last word


Hi Michael,
I confess to not having read the thread before the part included.
I'm 59, my daughter is 13. When she got a computer of her own some two
years ago, she sure did ask for Windows software. Everybody else has
it. She was annoyed because the games her friends had, would not run
on her machine.
Then I installed SuSE 8.0 on her machine, a year ago upgraded it to
SuSE 9.1. This year we changed the distribution to Debian Sarge and
after just a few months to Ubuntu 5.04
Meanwhile she found out how to update her machine herself and just
last week I happened to find some games on her machine I sure did not
install - so she must have done  it on her own. (She flatly refuses
to read man-pages though.)
She uses her computer for games, listens to internet-radio, does
internet research for her homework, exchanges emails with her
friends; she managed to install the CUPS-client  and I see her typing
(using OpenOffice writer) for hours almost every day.
Ever since she has Linux she managed to freeze it up twice (that I
know of). Yesterday she asked me to upgrade her machine to Breezy
Badger. (Likely we'll do just that next weekend.)

What I'm saying is, todays Linuxes are good enough for anyone who is
willing to learn how to use them. Many of us just do not want to
change habits. But then, those programs that we mostly need handle
all the same as the pendant in Windows. And guess what; I'd much
rather pay ? 60.- for some Linux that ships with e.g. OpenOffice than
$ 130.- for Windows plus a few for the applications needed.

I have worked with Microsoft products ever since they became
available. Like many others I went along with whatever a PC would be
shipped with until in '96 I found a RedHat cd in a bazaar in
Pakistan. It took me the better part of a week to get it to
co-operate with our Windows machines. Not yet convinced I still
bought w2k - it's still with us running on a Compaq Deskpro with a
350Mhz Intel; my wife uses it with MSN-Messenger to chat with her
family in Pakistan.
Whatever else we do with computers is done on machines running Linux.
There still is a SuSE 9.1, all others are either Debian Sarge or
Ubuntu. Our Internet gateway server (Debian Sarge) has an uptime of
today 119 days. No reboots. Try Windows for that.

Have fun!
Regards, Roland

On Friday 04 November 2005 21:23, Michael Shergold wrote:
> Two weeks ago I started this thread with a bit of explanation and
> background. Thanks for all your replies and comments and hopefully
> eventually things will be better, though I suspect when that day
> arrives many of you will be as unhappy with that distro or .org as
> you seem to be with Microsoft today.  I notice that there is quite
> a lot of anti-MS sentiment on show.
> I had originally been trying to set up an elderly desktop for my
> daughter's home use and a respected younger friend had suggested
> that Linux would be an ideal method of breathing life into old 386
> hardware.  That might perhaps still be true but would be useless
> for my daughter who is very used to MS Windows at work and here on
> my home network.  Someone else mentioned on this thread that they
> would never install Linux on their wife's machine..  Neither would
> I in it's present form!!! Breezy and Hoary might be more stable
> than Windows 95 but let's face it that's a ten year old operating
> system.  Today's XP+SP2 rarely crashes and can be made very secure;
> the large user base and MVP program means problem solutions are
> available within a few hours.  Not so Linux where it seems to be
> 'try this it worked for me' or 'look at this list of possible
> suggestions' or even worse, 'don't do what this document says
> because it will confuse things more' all of which I have received
> in answer to specific queries posted in this and the Kubuntu
> userlists.
> Thanks again for all your concern and suggestions
> best regards and thanks to Will, Matt, Kim, Rick, Philip, David,
> Michael, Peter, 'golfer', Troy, Dennis, Jason, Mike, Derek, Duncan,
> Timothy, Lee, Stu, Dan, Jason , Serg, Bernardo, rikel and 'wylfing
> the skeptic' and maybe some I missed.
> Michael the oldtimer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jason Straight" <jason at jeetkunedomaster.net>
> To: "Ubuntu Help and User Discussions"
> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005
> 6:27 AM
> Subject: Re: HOW-TO: Giving up Ubuntu
>
> > On Thursday 03 November 2005 01:12, Serg Belokamen wrote:
> >> This is a usless post and only re-emphesises opinions of others
> >> that Linux community are zelots! If your friend wants to use
> >> windows; then by all means....
> >>
> >> In regards to security, windows can be made as secure as any
> >> *nix system. People just dont do it.
> >>
> >> Dont get me wrong here, I dont use Windows much at all (not even
> >> at work) but fact remains that you just like MS got envolved in
> >> FUD approach.
> >
> > No, I just made a joke. It's funny - laugh, go ahead, it's ok.
> > None of your
> > windows friends are watching ;)
> >
> > I'll be the first person to say linux isn't for everyone, neither
> > is windows,
> > hell - some people shouldn't even bother trying to use a computer
> > at all.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > | Ubuntu Linux
> > | www.ubuntulinux.org
> > |
> > | Kubuntu
> > | www.kubuntu.org
> >
> > --
> > ubuntu-users mailing list
> > ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> > http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.7/155 - Release Date:
> > 01/11/2005

-- 
Roland.Harke at gmx.de

-- 
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users



-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.8/161 - Release Date: 03/11/2005