Posted on Monday 30th of October 2006 at 12:51 in Linux

Ubuntu user fails to convert girlfriend

This story comes from the Ubuntu Forums where one of the users attempted to convert his girlfriend to using Ubuntu. I've had his permission to display it here because I feel more people should read his story

I was SO SO close. I had everything working perfectly for her (except for the precious button on her keyboard that opens up a calculator). The end of the story gets a little unbelievable, but it's true.

About a year ago my girlfriend bought a Compaq computer (Windows XP MCE) from BB. She was satisfied with it until about 2 months ago. It started slowing down to a halt. Opening programs, surfing the internet...everything was taking forever. I've maintained her computer ever since the day she got it. From the beginning I installed AVG, ZoneAlarm, Spyboy S&D, Adaware, CCleaner and Microsoft Defender. I installed Firefox for her as well, but she didn't always use it. Basically, I had her computer locked down like a maximum security prison.

ubuntu

For the last two months however, all these programs stopped making any performance difference. Her computer just started crawling along. Finally she got sick of her computer's attitude (and my bragging about Ubuntu) and asked me to install Ubuntu. Naturally I did so happily and chose Kubuntu cause chicks dig eye candy, am I right guys? It installed flawlessly and I had no trouble setting up the drivers for her ATI card.

After the first few days the jury was still out. She didn;t have any complaints or anything, but didn't gush about it either. Then for some reason her connection to the internet get really crappy. Some pages took 5-10 minutes to load. And then the bitching commensed:

"I want Windows back, linux (as she simply refers to it) sucks!
I hate linux! The next time you're here you WILL take this off my computer!"

So I said:

"Let me see if I can figure out what's wrong baby, if i can't fix it I'll take linux off."

Immediately I booted into windows, and strangely enough in Windows she had absolutely NO internet connection. It was slow as a turtle in Ubuntu, but there was NOTHING in Windows. I repaired the connection in Windows but it was still slow...until I booted into Ubuntu. It was LIGHTNING FAST after fixing the connection and disabling ipv6.

This more than satisfied her for about two weeks, until the following exchange took place this morning:

"Linux is not user friendly at all. The names don't make sense. I can't figure out how to burn a CD. My burning program in Windows was SO much easier."

"Honey, it wasn't easier...Ubuntu is just different. Give yourself some time to adjust."

"No! I want windows back right now! Linux is so much faster, but the names are horrible."

"Ok, I guess I can take Ubuntu off your computer. But I don't know what else to do about how slow Windows is. Both your bother and I are out of ideas."

"That's ok. I'm gonna have my brother install that other one he has on his computer."

"He has Vista rc2 honey, you'll only be able to use that until june 2007 and after that it'll lock you out unless you drop $300 for a license.

"I don't care. That's like 8 months from now."

"Alright, I'm just trying to save you some hassle in the long run. But don't say I didn't warn you."

So currently she's grudgingly using kubuntu, but I'm sure it'll be gone shortly. It's a shame...I was so close...

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Comments

Showing most recent 18 of 18 comments

I’ve converted many people as well! Also, the people I convert pay me 50 bucks to do the conversion. I’m in the chicago area. WHY HASN’T ANYONE TALKED ABOUT VIRTUAL BOX. This is virtulization software I use to easy the angst of switching. They can always have windows close by on top of Ubuntu. Come to think of it, windows is better off as an application then an OS ;)

jon

Geez it sounds like you are trying to covert someone to swinging!

My girlfriend uses SUSE & Ubuntu and Win2k on a triple boot machine. She does different things on each. I administer any changes she wants.

I taught her like I teach everyone, as if the new system comes from a designer label fashion house or sports car maker. Obviously different from the MS supermarket system.

And obviously I treat them like a complete newbie with a new wardrobe or sports buggy. They can be the smart one and I the dumb (but sometimes clever) one and they can tell me how to do the basic stuff on the new system, while I show them how to dress up their desktop to kill, or spin their wheels by relinking their software names.

And I fix any problems immediately, saying thank goodness it’s easy to fix and it’s not the other one. And of course I never install on any hardware I haven’t checked as thoroughly as a PC builder would and I find and install software that the user likes using. And I install wine if they are a windows user and pop in a few bits of freeware or programs they are using I can get to run. And finally I set up their keyboard shortcuts for them.

They think I’m great and Linux ain’t bad as well

Stomfi

I succeeded with my girlfriend. She didn\’t exactly switched from Windows to Mandriva Linux because of the QSR VIVO and SPSS apps, (she\’s a sociologist) wich I was unable to find a replacement for. So dual boot it is.
But the thing is that she loves Mandriva.
The way it look and works, it\’s user friendly, it doesn\’t get infected or freezes up.

About the problems with CD burning. On KDE, K3B start whenever a new CD-R is inserted... Not hard to figure out... Maybe the problem in the user interface wasn\’t exactly the INTERFACE...

Greetings.

Alex Baez

I fuckin LOVE IT!

Reichman

Here’s a nice article I read the other day which gives insight as to why people don’t like change... http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/09/why_they_dont_u.html

Nathan

With gnome she would never say "I can’t figure out how to burn a CD"

gianni

Slightly OT but:

My parents XP laptop is locked down tight, so tight, that when they moved to broadband, it wouldn’t work. They phoned tech support, who told them to re-install, so they phoned me, and I told them to re-enable two services and all was right with the world again.

When next I went home, to do the obligatory 5 hour update, I found it took me 15 minutes. I ran every check I could think of, it was all still locked down, and everything was up to date. I’d finished configuring this laptop in a car on the way to the airport.

Locking down XP cuts right down on tech support and is a very good idea.

praxis22

1. It seems the boyfriend is a bit controlling "locked down like a maximum security prison" ... right. Unless she’s into bondage, that’s probably not a good thing.

2. Rather than just straight out choose the distro for her, the boyfriend should have let her take part in the decision-making process. When people make their own decisions, they tend to be more satisfied with the outcome.

3. She didn’t get what she asked for. It seems she asked for "Ubuntu" but got "Kubuntu" instead.

4. There’s a lot of choice with Linux. Perhaps she should try GNOME or Xfce or any of a number of other desktop environments.

5. CD/DVD burning: GNOME + Nautilus + burn:///

6. Maybe she wants to run some other programs that don’t work in linux? Is WINE installed? If her computer won’t run the programs she needs or wants, then it’s useless to her. Of course she would want linux back.

panon

Well, I converted my mother over to linux. Her very capable computer was struggling along one day trying to run the "flying through space" screensaver, which has been around and running fine on computers since at least windows 95. I took pity on the poor thing and installed kubuntu. I installed firefox which she used on windows, evolution, and kde-games for her solitaire. She couldn’t be happier with it. Plus its 1000% faster than the old virused-up windows partition (which i can’t delete just yet, need to recover some data from it)

Ademan

I wouldn’t force Linux on her. In fact I would just duel boot the PC and let her learn it when she want to. A girl I dated was okay with Linux because it did everything she needed for it to do. That’s really just surf the web, write documents and listen to music.

Erick

My Wife LOVES Linux/Ubuntu. He needs a new girl.

Jesse Jarzynka

Dude, this guy needs to drop his bitchy girlfriend.

monofonik

My apology sir. I did smile too while I was reading the story, girlfriends can be buggy sometimes.

Try a Gnome based distro next, perhaps?

If you want to stick with KDE though, I would suggest something like Mepis or PCLinuxOS that just steps user friendliness up a notch.

Just to clarify, it wasn’t me who did this... You should remain in your comfort zone as far as an O/S is concerned, whether that’s trying something new or sticking to what you know.

It’s a story from another user that I’ve published because it made me smile.

>DP - ive heard good things about PCLinux05, maybe I’ll look into it anyway.

Seopher

Personally, I don’t think you should even bother forcing Linux on to her.

Let her run Windows, if she chooses. But make sure you count and note down how many times it goes down, gets infected with something or starts acting funny. :)

BTW...Did you set up a restricted user account for her when you install Windows? Maybe try Sandboxie as an additional layer?

On the other hand, did you carefully guide her through the Linux basics and such? Or did you just throw her into the deep end? (Which could explain her rejection of Linux).

Getting someone onto Linux is no easy task. Carefully guiding them the basics and how to do everyday things is the challenge. The challenge of patience and explaining things clearly. (I know, I’ve converted many people!)

grfe4e

Use PClinuxOS instead, it will give her the best of linux experiences.

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Ubuntu user fails to convert girlfriend