Someone should teach them to run Wine or dual-boot.

if people are strugling with a mdk or RH line type install, they will also struggle with a windows install. heck remember win95 isntall?

so offer to do the install for them, dont tell them what you are doing, just that you will speed things up, keep things more secure, basically eliminate all viruses from ever getting to their system, remove 99.9% of all spy/add/mallware from there system and increase the security of their data (pictures, word documents, etc) and you will do it as a gift for them.

then offer to sit down and show them the basics they will need to know to work in the new GUI. do not bother to show them any of the CLI or the real power as they will not care, nor will they ever use it.

Windows may well be the better choice because as has already been said if they are so computer illiterate how do you go about making them understand that the game they have just bought won't work on their computer because of the OS.

To those that said if they struggle to use Windows they've no chance with Linux thats rubbish and elitism at its best. Once the systems have been setup what is harder, to click start -> programs -> Internet Explorer or to click applications -> Internet -> Firefox. For the level of user which has been described they probably wouldn't know (and wouldn't care) that they are using a different OS to the norm

I know I may upset a few of you more Linux-evangelical ones out there with this post, but I'd actually prefer that Aunt Tillie or Grandpa Joe not use Linux.

Why? I'd like to see Linux remain a *"COMPUTER operating system" and not have it turn into the stereo or television operating system that Windows is. If more **"simple users" get into Linux it will be because the different distros have made it less of a COMPUTER operating system. That will be a bad thing for Linux because we will turn to something else besides Linux for a COMPUTER operating system.

At that point Linux will stagnate because simple computer users generally make bad contributors. If anyone knows much about BZFlag the game, they will remember that BZFlag used to be quite buggy on Windows machines. Once the BZFlag developers sorted out the Windows platform, the Windows locust horde got in, razed the game servers and eventually began the cannabalization of the BZFlag community. Now there is far less innovation for the game since there are more consumers than producers. Not that it matters much, since it is after all a computer game instead of an entire operating system/platform. Still, it does serve as a warning.


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* COMPUTER operating system: a type of operating system that allows a computer to be interfaced with as though it were actually a computer. Linux and BSD variants good. Proprietary ones like Windows and ***Mac are bad.

** simple users: those users who only care about running very specific software, browsing internet web pages, reading email and playing games. They could care less about how a network connection takes place, how to install an operating system (because to them the operating system is the computer), how to write a program, and how to install a program beyond double-clicking Setup.exe.

*** Yes, I realize that OS X uses a Unix kernel. Still the rest of the source is closed and it is more difficult than it should be to get under the hood. That is a bad thing

I am a teacher for a large inner city school district. One of my teacher friends and her family have the worst trouble keeping their computer working. They have the usual Windows/AOL set up. I stop by every three months for a few hours to keep the machine working. If the family would only switch to Linux, they would not suffer from so many Windows headaches. I really feel sorry for the family when they can not use the Internet for a week at a time because Windows is so flawed.

I have a wife who knows nothing about operating systems. (Yet, she is fairly smart. She graduated in the top of her class from Law School.) In fact, when I installed Linux, she thought that I just did something to make Windows look different. The only thing that she knows for certain is that the computer works better now.

Thank you for all of your thoughtful comments! I will be elitist for a moment and say that us Linux users are a cut above average.

I do not agree with this. The fact that Windows is not much of a COMPUTER OS is because it is closed and propietary, and its pieces are so deeply integrated. In windows you cannot get rid of the GUI because is so integrated into the system, that even some GUI functionality is hard-coded into the kernel itself. (yes, windows has a kernel too)

The fact that Linux is OPEN and modular gives us the certainty that whatever pieces you put onto it to make it more windoze alike or easier, more user-friendly, etc. you will always have the choice to make a custom "distribution". There will always be distributions oriented to newbies, less techies, with more wizards and stuff, and other distributions (perhaps less popular to the general population) but with source .tar.gz installations, where you will be able to do lots of ./configure, make, make install and all that stuff, with no GUI if you want.

I could go on forever, but I hope you get the idea. So adapting Linux to make it easier to the general population is not changing Linux into something different, it's just having the same core with different shells.

I wouldn't convert anyone to Linux. Let them keep experiencing all the hardships caused by using Windows until they get tired and finally understand once and for all, that it is virtually impossible to run a Windows machine and keep away from viruses. Once they are willing to move away from Windows, introduce Linux to them and introduce a distro that *you* feel that they will be comfortable with.

You can use this as a punch line:
Windows attracts computer viruses like a candle light attracts the moths. It's just against the law of nature.

Though I thought of that, you needn't mention my name in the credits column

You talk like if all windows users know linux exists and they still use windows because of something else. If you would have converted someone you would understand how they feel about the change, and you would know that they were not aware of the CHOICE before. At most they knew of the existence of another OS'es but had the idea those were only for academic, scientific or other specific purposes, like web hosting, high quality graphics rendering for motion pictures special effects, silicon graphics, stephen spielberg and all that stuff.

I think the CHOICE has to be given for people to judge which one is the best. I know about linux because I am a computer science graduate, but lawyers, physicians, taxi drivers and generally all non-techies know nothing or very little about other OS'es.

The same occurs with alternative programs even within the windows world, like OpenOffice.org instead of M$ Office, Mozilla Firefox or Opera instead of MSIE, or Thunderbird instead M$ Outlook, etc.

I agree, although I've only met one other person that knows what linux is, most people I know don't know what a webbrowser is (when i ask them what webbrowser they use they say "whats that" or something similar then i ask them what they click on to view the internet some still don't know what I'm talking about), our school computers use Mac OS X and they all seem to use them fine, and they usually use Safari or Firefox, they don't care what they click on as long as it works, but only one of my friends actually uses firefox at home but theirs another guy that uses Mac OS X at home, point is most don't know there is choice, they just use what came with their computer.

this is so true. i was on MSN with a friend whom i had not chatted with in about 2 years and when i told her i had to figure out a way to setup a MSN account on my linux laptop she had no clue what linux was. so i told her a little bit about it and her responce was wow, that must be really expensive. to witch i replied nope its 100% free.

i can only imagine that her jaw droped open when that clicked in and registered what i had said, and that i ment it.

anyways, linux is growing faster and faster and i am glad of it. still hard to convert companies to linux when they use so many 3rd party prapriatory apps that will not run in crossover office, but time will come.

Nevertheless, I would like it if common users never discovered or used Linux just the same. :-)

Yeah and are you sure she was not referring to the price of your laptop?

Harlin, quit freaking out. there will always be more advanced computer users and the less advanced computer users on whatever OS you look at. Bzflag is a game, man. Games, however cool they are, are not important, nor are they examples in the real world (much) Games run under thier own rules. Linux will not bcome polluted. There will always be slackware users out there.
If you knew the cure for cancer would you keep it to an elite bunch? (id prefer it that Grandpa Jones and Aunty Wanda didn't know about the cure for cancer, more general users will just spoil it for us elite people.)

Allright... off my soap box
titanium_geek

I've been successful so far in converting my collegues. I'm chief of department with 8 people under me. With only two I had problems convincing and mostly because of their university demands. Unfortunately a graet number of universities are still Microsoft related

whay not just do what i do!

i always carry my usb pen drive on me whach has damn small linux on it, when i go to a mates or anything and use there computer i will boot linux off that and when i come of the computer i leave the pen drive in running linux until i go then they will use linux without realising and usually 9 times out of ten i always get asked how did i get the system runing better and things like that.

also tell them with linux that they wont have to bother buying anti virus or things like norton system works to keep the system running as linux simply just runs! after telling them that they dont have to do virus scans every other day and search for spyware on the days you arnt doing a virus scan they often start seriosly considering linux

and when they do decide to switch to linux give them a dual boot but srt it up so the deafault OS is linux other wise they may use it and like it but will forget to use it and then if they do need windows they still have the option