I got started on the 1 year Linux challenge a couple weeks ago by installing Ubuntu on my wife's laptop...She had Windows 7 but it was running really slowly and I was planning to do a clean install anyway, and decided to go full monty with Linux. So there's no dual booting or anything, but I did set up a virtual machine with Win7.
She of course agreed to it, and I told her if it was too much of a pain, I' would reinstall Windows. What I wasn't expecting was that she totally embraced the idea and was super pumped. Over the last few days, without even asking me, she figured out how to install Skype and Netflix. She called me up all excited and said "I installed a program using the backdoor" and I had to ask what that meant. She meant the terminal, haha. So she did the whole sudo apt-add repo and sudo apt-get install. She isn't super tech savvy, and has never used the terminal on a computer before. Now she just asked me, "how do I learn to program?" Yeah that was even more unexpected.
Awesome story! Thanks for sharing. I started on the linux challenge last week, even though I still feel like I am in over my head, using the terminal and getting stuff to work is very satisfying.
Yeah it is really satisfying. I've tried Linux periodically since like 2008, this time around it seems like things have gotten more friendly for n00bs like myself.
Awesome story, the backdoor part made me smile. I'd encourage your wife to learn more about linux, how it works, what's under the hood, ... "Don't let your dreams be dreams!" (Courtesy of Shia LaBeouf) :D
I moved over to Linux Mint at home some years ago, when our Windows Vista PC died (what a surprise!). At first my wife dismissed Linux saying, "if it's free, it's going to be rubbish". Now she's a Linux evangelist, urging her friends to do ditch Windows for the greater speed and reliability of Linux.
We now have many more PC's and Laptops, all Linux.
This is good advice...After talking to her about installs, I realized I have no idea where stuff goes on Linux after the glorious apt-get install. So a pretty easy/obvious next step for us is to review the filesystem and figure out best practice for where stuff should go.
Sorta have a similar story with my grandma. After almost breaking her PC with the worst malware I've ever dealt with, I ended up putting Zorin on her computer, and she couldn't be happier. Later learned she went into terminal (yes an 80 year old going into terminal) to install libreoffice. The power of google, if an 80 year old can figure it out, so can you lol.
That's awesome. I've moved dads htpc, mums laptop, and a laptop I gave to an 80 year old granny to Linux mint and (almost) everything works perfect. Those pc's are on mint cinnamon 17.3 My main desktop is on arch, laptop on mint cinnamon 17.3, going to move dads laptop to mint 17.3 soon too, his htpc is on mint cinnamon 17.3. In the process of building dad a mini Linux desktop to replace the old C2D he uses just for VoIP and Skype. Things are going good. I taught the 80 year old granny and another 79 year old granny how to use a laptop and internet, they're happy with Linux. I'm happy that your wife is enthusiastic of GNU/Linux.
Wow. You have a keeper right there man! Glad to see that there are some people who are ready to take something new from someone they trust and run with it :)
I'm definitely on the same page as @Amakker, albeit a little further in my challenge. Sometimes there's so much information or the information is out of date, and I just don't know what to do.
Just recently, I had an issue with running Minecraft using the Wayland display server. It just wouldn't work. It just so happened that Minecraft doesn't currently work when using the Wayland display server. Gotta use Xorg. Had to find this one out on my own. All the information was about a bug that happened two years ago regarding LWJGL.