Social Experiment

[NoOp]

On 09/15/2007 10:35 AM, Derek Broughton wrote:
> NoOp wrote:
> 
>> On 09/15/2007 09:10 AM, Alex Janssen wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> The sales person using this new desktop commented that as long as her
>>> apps ran, she did not care what OS was used.  She did ask what happened
>>> to the green start button in the lower left corner of the screen.  I
>>> told her we got rid of the stupid thing and made a better menu system in
>>> the top left.  She was Ok with that.  I also informed her that she now
>>> has the coolest screensavers in the office.  She liked leaving them as
>>> random rather than choosing one.
>>> 
>> 
>> You can fix that. All you need to do is ...
> 
> I rather got the feeling that Alex is treating this as a feature, not a
> bug. :-)  Why make it look just like Windows - you have to make them feel
> it's _better_ than Windows.

I prefer it the Gnome way... but quite often I'll set up a system for a
windoze user that way to get them comfortable making the change... even
put a pretty blue Gnome Curves background on (which I prefer anyway). I
even remove the top panel if they have a smaller screen (15 inch w/poor
resolution etc) so that they have more screen space. Then I put the
standard OpenOffice, Firefox, Trash etc., icons on the desktop, put the
Evo clock/calendar in the lower right...

I've found over time that sometimes it just makes for an easier
transition. Then after awhile I'll stop by (or log in remotely) and
introduce them to the additional features. Sometimes they like the
change to a more standard Gnome desktop, sometimes not -- either way is
fine with me as long as they are comfortable & productive w/linux :-)

I've experimented with kubuntu & a few other similar kde setups, but
found that I can just as easily use Gnome and end up with a (IMHO)
cleaner desktop & one that I can easily troubleshoot when they need
additional help. That's not to say that I don't like kde apps... I use
them every day in Gnome (krdc etc) and so far haven't had any trouble
running them.