Converting people to Linux..

So the last few days I have been very busy. I have been reinstalling Windows on my mother system as it was getting pretty loaded down with spyware old programs she does not use etc. She uses Spybot, but does not really run it often enough. Not a big deal, probably a good idea to start clean every couple years.. Really speeds up the system in my opinion. Every time you install a program, it dumps junk in the registry, and that all gets loaded into the system every time you run Windows. Some programs do not do a good job of removing themselves from the registry either.

So I did her system, then her boyfriend, a real nice guy named Terry, asked me about a week ago if I could help him find a decent laptop for cheap. So I look around, and found a nice deal on geeks.com. It was a refurb, but perfect for a beginner who has no interest in the higher end games. The first thing I asked him is if he would mind me putting Linux on there so we did not have to worry about spyware, virus’ etc. He thought that was a great idea.. Then he talked to some guy at work, who said,”But Linux is a lot harder then Windows!” He asked me about it, and I assured him that once it is running, which I would make sure it was for him, it would be as easy to learn as Windows for a first operating system. It is only harder for Windows users because they have to learn something new. He is now happily running Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy.

I was really impressed with this newest release of Ubuntu. I have not liked it in the past, but boy, they have done some cool things with it. It went on his new laptop as slick as can be. I had to connect it to the network through a wire just long enough to install the wireless drivers, after that, I unplugged, tweaked everything out, and it was working great! I spent a little while trying to make sure he has all the basics he needs on his system.. We set him up with a Gmail account and an Igoogle homepage and all the rest, and it worked great! 🙂 We even set him up with Pidgin IM with the whole family added to the list. I did forget to make it autostart, which I will have to take care of, but hopefully he will find it if he wants it. 🙂 If not, he seems like a patient guy, so it should not be a big deal. 🙂

So then I took his laptop and my mothers computer back over to them, and my brother Steve asked if I would change his system over to Ubuntu also, as he liked the way it looked and acted.  I said sure, but it would take a couple of days.  Well, he ended up watching over my shoulder for the entire time, so his system did not really get tweaked out as much as Terry’s.  I feel bad, but I hate having someone watching over my shoulder all the time.  It really would not have taken 2 days, but he wanted games running on a laptop, and Yahoo Mail with a notifier, and an Epson Stylus Printer/Scanner working, and a Creative Labs Media Player and a Digital Camera all working, and basically, as I attached everything, I then had to show him how to use it, which really took more time.  Not his fault, he was curious, but still, it is a bit frustrating for me.  Left alone, I probably could have gotten it done in a day and had it nicely laid out.  Now, I will probably end up either showing him how to do some of the things I normally would have just done later, or do them at some point when he is over with his laptop.  We will see which.  Either way, it was cool to see 2 newbies added to the Linux ranks.