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My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

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Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#101

Post by skyebook »

jrs99 wrote: post #33
wting wrote: post #21

Both my parents are 60+. My mom is perfectly fine using Ubuntu on my old x61 for email, browsing, and YouTube. To be fair she could probably replace it with a tablet if it weren't for the fact that she visits a lot of flash sites (Chinese TV streaming sites). Likewise my dad is on another Ubuntu machine at home. His work needs access to some software / printers that can't be run via Wine so he's stuck with Windows th…

if you have a paper to write or something, some younger people i've seen, they've really gotten accustomed to Word and Powerpoint. If you're not an expert on the one program you need that's only on Windows, I think you can get comfortable quickly with Linux without missing anything.

As much as I cringe to say this, you can get into a pretty decent groove with Word as far as footnotes/endnotes go. I remember in College hating the knowledge that I was using Word but being able to fly through citations pretty quickly without losing my train of thought as I wrote.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#102

Post by mfincham »

bdamm wrote: post #91
carl-platt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Dad has been begging me to install Ubuntu on his MacBook Air. I think it's time I did.

It has been my experience that running Linux natively on Apple hardware is a huge pain.

Anecdote: I've been running Debian Stable on a Macbook Air I bought in 2011 since then, it's been great (and doubly great since Wheezy, the support is basically 100%).

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#103

Post by asveikau »

stormbrew wrote: post #23
lespea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true back in the xp days but I haven't had to manually hunt down drivers in years . Although I still manually install my graphics drivers since the ones you get through windows update aren't near as current.

It's definitely still true. Every windows install from a non-OEM copy in the last few years has required me to sneakernet my network drivers before I could do anything (including get other drivers). Linux has actually been much better for this since the release cycles are shorter and the barrier to getting a driver officially included seems lower (requires WHQL certification on windows, which presumably is not only w…

I guess one thing Windows does well is pulling drivers from Windows Update. So if your network card is supported there is a good chance you'll get things working. Unfortunately not every network card you can throw at it will work out of the box.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#104

Post by piratejon »

_qhtn wrote: post #67
wting wrote: post #21

Both my parents are 60+. My mom is perfectly fine using Ubuntu on my old x61 for email, browsing, and YouTube. To be fair she could probably replace it with a tablet if it weren't for the fact that she visits a lot of flash sites (Chinese TV streaming sites). Likewise my dad is on another Ubuntu machine at home. His work needs access to some software / printers that can't be run via Wine so he's stuck with Windows th…

Your brother is 25 and has shit to do. I'm sure that once he's old and retired he'll be glad to have learning a new system to take up his time.

I wanted to voice my concurrence with the sentiment ensconced in the rudeness you are probably being downvoted for: I am in my twenties, generally operate from the perspective of one who thinks he "has shit to do" (in fact I use that very phrase frequently to characterize my obligations and commitments), and don't see myself having time to learn a new tool, method, or technique every time I have a need to express myself, whether professionally or personally. I don't believe this attitude is uncommon and is probably worth taking into consideration by those who would persuade people like your brother and me to use new things. Such as node.js.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#105

Post by sliverstorm »

lucb1e wrote: post #50

This thread is awesome. It always feels like I'm the only person on the planet using linux in school; school requires us to use Windows and teaches several other proprietary vendor lock-ins; and very, very few friends actually use Linux, even though most are programmers. Tomorrow I'm going to an open source event, mostly to show support for foss in general. Ironically the event will be in school: the very thing most…

What do you mean, nobody uses Linux? At my Uni, in CS you couldn't not use one *nix or another. All the classwork happened on some timeshares.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#107

Post by erichurkman »

thefreeman wrote: post #100
shuzchen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should keep an eye on Mozilla's Shumway ( https://github.com/mozilla/shumway ). I recently installed it as an add-on to the firefox browser on my Android Tablet (Galaxy Tab 2 7) and have had luck with a few flash sites.

Why would you need to do that? Android tablets run flash?

My reason of interest? Many things on the internet still rely on Flash, but Adobe has historically showed that they are not capable of delivering secure software, based on the number of exploits in Flash, Reader, etc.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#108

Post by pcx66 »

wting wrote: post #21

Both my parents are 60+. My mom is perfectly fine using Ubuntu on my old x61 for email, browsing, and YouTube. To be fair she could probably replace it with a tablet if it weren't for the fact that she visits a lot of flash sites (Chinese TV streaming sites). Likewise my dad is on another Ubuntu machine at home. His work needs access to some software / printers that can't be run via Wine so he's stuck with Windows th…

My parents are both 50+. My Dad's a Sales guy and my mom is a high school teacher in a primarily non-English, government school. They use Ubuntu for all their tasks. Mostly includes Browsing(YouTube, Epapers), talking to my sister in the States (Hangouts), Media (music, photos and videos) and LibreOffice. The stuff they discover sometimes amazes me, all along I've been believing this would be too hard for them.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#109

Post by cyborb »

mataug wrote: post #69
wting wrote: post #21

Both my parents are 60+. My mom is perfectly fine using Ubuntu on my old x61 for email, browsing, and YouTube. To be fair she could probably replace it with a tablet if it weren't for the fact that she visits a lot of flash sites (Chinese TV streaming sites). Likewise my dad is on another Ubuntu machine at home. His work needs access to some software / printers that can't be run via Wine so he's stuck with Windows th…

My mom 50+, No technical knowledge, uses ubuntu for email, youtube, and general browsing, and occasionally makes presentations. My colleagues at work, Programmers, aren't able to get out of Windows, even though they are just writing python. They would rather stick with the pain of having to use git in a crappy console, and suffer loads of pain when shell-ing into ec2 linux boxes, Than learn a new UI and file-system

That's what drives me craziest about programming in windows, the freak'n console is awful
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