My girlfriends PC was down about 6 months ago because her POS mobo ate her HDD. So she needs to do some basic photo editing for a project, mostly pasting heads on clipart bodies. She comes over and a set her up an account on my box. Running Evil Entity Linux Base5 with Enlightenment. Conversation is as follows:

Her: Where is the start menu?
Me: Just click on the desktop.
Her: Where?
Me: Anyway, just click.
Her: OMG! That is so cool. It make so much more sense!
Me: I know. It's great.
Her: Ok, now what do I do.
Me: tools -> GIMP
Her: This looks just like Photoshop...
Me: Yep, and free.
Her: Not $700?
Me: Nope. $0.
*clickity clickity clickity*
Her: Now how do I save to my disk?
*mounting tutorial here*
Her: That's stupid. Why do it like that?
Me: See those meters on the left of the desktop? See where is says floppy? Click the button next to it.
Her: Oh, ok. then click it off when I save?
Me: Bingo baby.

Well, her new HDD comes in and I'm explaining to her we might have issue with WinXP and OfficeXP activations. She looks at me matter-of-factly and says "Can I just install what you have?"

My jaw hit the ground! I never thought I could love my g/f of 5 years more then I did that moment. So she's now running Linux using E as her desktop because "it just makes so much more sense". She's syncing her PDA, using OpenOffice, and hasn't looked back once. Not once has she said "I wish Linux could do xxxx". She just assumes linux can do it, and rightly so. She opens google, searches "linux sync palm pilot" or whatever, and calls me to help her install. Dependencies are still scary for even linus vets.

To me, this was a great experiment in "below average computer user" using Linux vs Microsoft. Personally, I'm not a Windows hater. I think the operating system is pretty good as of XP. But Linux "Just makes more sense".

but is the pda also running linux? :P
good story

Interesting project!

cexshun, Does your partner know that you rate her as "below average"? That's a 4 right?

Ha. Below average as in computer knowledge. And yes, she knows that she's not very computer savvy. That's what I like about her anyway.

And her project was for her church. She took some digi pics at a picnic and was pasting the heads on some clip arts bodies to hang on the church bullitin board.

Wow, Im jealous! My ex thought I was just a huge geek and wouldnt even touch my computers computer to DUST!

Maybe next time i shold ask about opensource on the application....

this one made me smile

That's awesome. Just need to convince my wife now. :P

Well, funny thing is, now this g/f has become a fiance and is carrying a baby.

We're going to have a linux baby! Already ordered a bunch of linux baby clothes. I'm going to have a son, and raise him with freedom and independance. I'm going to raise him on linux.

For a peek at the baby,
http://www.libbintech.com

Congrats man! I wish I could convince my wife to give linux a shot. She just uses her laptop to chat, surf and email! Refuses to try linux though.