Ubuntu user fails to convert girlfriend
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.
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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And again...Evolution...Elm...Pine...Um, yeah...what the heck? How about OUTLOOK! Talk about empowering! nobody feels insecure using OUTLOOK! Names like POWERPOINT and Explorer...all mean what they say! There is no ambiguity. But firefox...what the heck does that mean? Nothing really. Its like someone wanted a domain name but all the good ones were taken so they made one up!
And burning a CD or DVD in Linux? Are you kidding? This is almost impossible if you don't have the burning software installed by an expert before you use the computer!
Someone wrote:
"CD/DVD burning: GNOME + Nautilus + burn:///"
Huh? What the heck does that mean? What's GNOME? What's Nautilus? I can only assume that they are both programs in Linux...so taking that further with the above statement, then burn:/// is another program...where can I find that one?
Anyone ever try and play an ASF file on Linux? Unless you're a guru and know exactly how to manually edit a CONF file, it's impossible! Yeah, I ran the ubuntu library thingy and looked at all the applications there...and even installed a few, but none of them played an asf file.
And how do I take a disk image of my system...and no, I don't want to drop down to a command line and run some archaic "dd" command to do it...I want to see an icon, click on it and do a complete backup, user space *AND* system space backed up completly...I still haven't found something to do that in Linux...
So yeah...everybody here on this list reads this person's problems and we all roll our eyes and say under our breath what a dummy that person is...but we forget...we do this stuff every day...we know what we are doing...we have the patience to spend dozens of hours tracking down a single command variance to get that application running just right...
But most of the people out there aren't us...they are users...and as users, they just want to get the job done...They don't want to modify a screwdriver so it can hammer in a nail...they just want to get the job done..and we forget this
Ed
web/gadget guru
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
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.