Why move your parents to Windows rather than to some other Linux distribution? (Fedora, Linux Mint, Debian...)
If i were in OP's shoes, I would probably test drive Zorin before going back to Windows: http://www.zorin-os.com/
Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#42Bye bye Linux! Hello viruses, trojans, and ever-increasing bloat!
This is so unfair...
Viruses, trojans and bloat are not a part of Windows, it is what users make of their systems. I use both FreeBSD and Windows (as desktops) and I haven't had an issue with any of them for the last two years.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#43Recently I decided to play some game and had to boot windows partition which I did not use from the date of laptop purchase. So I went through Windows clean installation process and then it all started - scrolling on touchpad not working, directx not working with pre-packaged drivers (had to download over 600 megs of video drivers - have no clue what take so much space.) While downloading it, I browsed some news and…
You might also have a hardware problem.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#44I'm encountering something similar this Christmas. We'd given my wife's grandma a Chromebook - and it has died of its own accord after just 14 months. After talking about the replacement, she nearly begged for a Windows or a Mac. By name. This same woman that doesn't think she can run the microwave while being on the cordless phone. We (Linux, and I'm lumping ChromeOS into this albeit a different beast) aren't going…
I don't know if it's so much about UI. For a total novice I'm not sure if Unity would be harder to learn than say Windows 7, assuming unfamiliarity with both.
It's really down to compatibility and of course with a more common OS there are more friends and relatives that you can ask for help.
Compatibility with old software can be a big deal for some people too, for example my mother struggles to understand why she can't just keep using the same version of Wordperfect that she learnt in 1994.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#45Why move your parents to Windows rather than to some other Linux distribution? (Fedora, Linux Mint, Debian...)
There were also all these other complaints like "I've got this book about photo editing from a friend of mine, can you install that software for me?" where I have to say, no, sorry mom, that only works on Windows. Same with watching video's of a certain TV-channel (Silverlight 4, not supported by Monolight yet) and a dozen other things. Like I said, I always had faith one day all (most) will be good. But now that I'v…
You're just trading those problems for the problems of viruses and 8 IE toolbars.
I don't know why someone would go from Ubuntu to Windows. I can easily see going to Mac, or a tablet.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#46Those people who claim Ubuntu is ready for parents, brothers, sister, and those with little computer experience to use are kidding themselves. I understand the work that has to go into supporting devices that don't ship with nix drivers, but the amount of issues I've encountered as a slightly experienced Linux user puts me off, let alone anyone who hasn't a clue about the stuff you need to perform on command line.
I completely agree with OP.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#47Recently I decided to play some game and had to boot windows partition which I did not use from the date of laptop purchase. So I went through Windows clean installation process and then it all started - scrolling on touchpad not working, directx not working with pre-packaged drivers (had to download over 600 megs of video drivers - have no clue what take so much space.) While downloading it, I browsed some news and…
You might also have a hardware problem.
Yes, if you are getting actual BSOD under a recent version of Windows it is almost always the result of a hardware problem.
Make a note of the error message at the top of the BSOD and google for it.
If you want to do some tests , download something called "Ultimate boot CD" which is a boot disk with a combination of DOS and Linux based hardware test programs. I've used it to find faulty memory on many a misbehaving system.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were also all these other complaints like "I've got this book about photo editing from a friend of mine, can you install that software for me?" where I have to say, no, sorry mom, that only works on Windows. Same with watching video's of a certain TV-channel (Silverlight 4, not supported by Monolight yet) and a dozen other things. Like I said, I always had faith one day all (most) will be good. But now that I'v…
You say you started in 2009 - I'm assuming you started with linux a bit earlier than that. I started using linux on the desktop in 1999 part time, and moved 'full time' by ... 2003 I think. I gave up around 2008. Gave up trying to migrate friends/family; gave up being an evangelist. The number of things that wouldn't work on someone's hardware was always greater than my ability to help/google/patch/whatever. And I go…
I largely agree, though I'm willing to research my hardware as long as I have the idea we move in the right direction of software that is more stable and intuitive to use (and where user liberties and rights are central).
I just got disappointed in the seemingly new direction of Canonical not sharing my values. The vision and hope was exactly the energy I needed to fight all the non-working stuff.
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#49I'm so glad that someone is writing about this issue. It is important to understand that 12.04 and 12.10 both SUCK.
Here's why: Previously I was on 10.04, the best thing that happened to me ever. Boot speed was amazing and shutdown speed was the fastest among the three OS'es I had then (Windows Vista, OSX, Ubuntu 10.04).
Then something happened. I purchased the Windows 8 Upgrade edition and I had to partition my drives (because I wanted to) and I thought "you know what? Let me upgrade my Ubuntu, it's been sometime since I upgraded it." I upgraded it to 12.10 and I used it as my only OS before installing Windows 8 (because the setup was corrupted and I had to re-download it).
It was a nightmare. Unity is a nightmare. Before using 12.10, I was on 11.x and 12.04. I don't see why they have to thrust Unity onto your face. Everything was really fine before Unity came.
Unity is one of the poorest experience one could ever experience on any operating system. I'm not sure if it was inspired from some other OS, but whatever it is, it's a poor implementation and clearly no proper research has gone into designing Unity. For example, switching between open program windows is a nightmare, if you have auto-hide enabled, it just gets worse. If you are a developer, nothing could get even worse than trying to switch between a text editor and a web browser, for instance.
Now to the core, the OS itself is painfully slow. Post installation of Windows 8, I compared the boot and shut down times of both the OS'es. I'm not exaggerating here, but Windows 8 shuts down much much quicker than 12.10. The only reason I loved Ubuntu was for its speed, let alone security. Now what Canoncial has done is taken the only reason for me to use Ubuntu and bastardized it as much as they could. Video drivers are another issue. Back on 10.04, I had to manually install Nvidia drivers myself, but it would work well once installed. 12.10 just fucked it up big time. It would automatically try to install something and you will have to spend sleepless nights trying to remove it and install the correct driver only to realize that it wouldn't work either!
I know you can bring back Gnome using some terminal commands, but the speed of the OS itself is still slow. Try switching between tabs on Chrome, you'll realize what I mean.
Ubuntu's target audience has always been developers and power users first, and everyone else next. With Unity, they're trying to push Ubuntu towards general users, which will be a difficult task. Moving away from your target audience to attract a newer audience is the worst strategy I could ever think of.
Hence, here's another Bye-bye from me to Ubuntu. Hello Windows 8! (single boot!).
Re: Bye Bye Ubuntu, a sad Christmas
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were also all these other complaints like "I've got this book about photo editing from a friend of mine, can you install that software for me?" where I have to say, no, sorry mom, that only works on Windows. Same with watching video's of a certain TV-channel (Silverlight 4, not supported by Monolight yet) and a dozen other things. Like I said, I always had faith one day all (most) will be good. But now that I'v…
People have to live with the fact that not all software works for all OSs. Android vs iOS, Windows vs Mac vs *nix etc. If your mom got a book about photo editing for Mac-only software, would you be so sad to tell her "sorry mom, that only works on MacOS"? For the purpose intended, I'd install a Debian distro and leave it be for the whole lifetime of the computer. Their support lasts a lot (but so does Ubuntu's for lo…
> People have to live with the fact that not all software works for all OSs.
That's the reality today, but when you take a step back and look at it more broadly it sounds nothing short of ridiculous. I don't remember any scifi movies where the characters had to dual-boot their refrigerators because the main OS kept track of your food supply but another OS had the software for calorie counting.
When you tell any normal person "that software doesn't work on this computer" they'll only stare back at you confused. It really doesn't make any sense and it should be the #1 priority for software development going forward.