My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by keithpeter » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:34 PM UTC

bchjam wrote: post #41

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 dad's 60+ as well. I've had him use Ubuntu on an older laptop when his newer one was broken (several times now). He only uses music players & browsers (he uses stock trading websites, so needs java & flash plugins). He says he likes it but always goes back to Windows when he can.

Just a suggestion: next time try Xubuntu with one bottom panel. Sufficiently close to XP/Win7 interface for ingrained responses.

You could be very cheeky and set the RedmondXP theme in XFCE4 just as a joke.

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

#282

Post by pretentious-me » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:34 PM UTC

trentmb wrote: post #205

fit2rule wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 and no time to learn something new? You're doing life wrong.

You're right, why don't I have a paper published in every possible field of academic inquiry? Seriously, just because you had too much free time doesn't mean I do. I appreciate your nonsensical condescension.

You took that idea to the logical extreme, dude. Nobody is saying that if you have even a little free time, you should be a polymath. But if you don't have time to learn a little something new (especially something that relates to the career field you plan to spend the rest of your life in), you either find the time, or you'll find your career stagnating before you know it.

Also, stop being offended by every comment that doesn't agree with yours. fit2rule's comment could be considered a bit presuming, but it is neither nonsensical nor condescending. On the other hand, your comment is both of those things.

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

#283

Post by zafodbeeblebrox » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

astrobe_ wrote: post #163

mkmkmmmmm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I never got about Windows and especially Windows devs. How can you get anything done with all that clicking and no unix tools?

IDEs and Stockholm syndrome.

Haha yep

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

#284

Post by keithpeter » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #46

chimeracoder wrote: post #18

Linux Mint is actually a very easy and natural transition from Windows. A few years ago, I installed Linux on my parents' desktop (dual-boot)[0] and told them that they were "forbidden" to use any other computer for web browsing, document editing, etc. I told them that this would be more secure, and that's all it took to convince them. I figured that, this way, at least I could fix any of their computer problems remo…

The thing is Windows XP, with all its warts, will still run comfortably on a 6 or 8 year PC that was low-end when it was new. A few weeks ago, when my wife's old XP computer finally wouldn't boot anymore I got a new hard drive and tried to run Ubuntu on it. Couldn't even get through the installer without it freezing up. Lubuntu installed but wasn't stable. OpenBSD with KDE was pretty good, and I would have stayed wit…

Good that you could restore the old system, but as others have said depending on the graphics card Ubuntu stock may not be the best candidate for installing on a low spec machine.

I'd go for CentOS in that situation with the Stella repositories for multimedia, but would also consider Debian Wheezy XFCE4. As others have suggested one of the Mint flavours might work well.

Having said that, Debian Wheezy 'full fat' with Gnome 3/Shell works fine on this X60 manufactured in December 2006 and fitted with 1Gb of RAM. Admittedly, that was not a low end machine when it was manufactured.

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

#285

Post by NicoJuicy » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

mkmkmmmmm wrote: post #119

cyborb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's what I never got about Windows and especially Windows devs. How can you get anything done with all that clicking and no unix tools?

Cygwin :)

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

#286

Post by NicoJuicy » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

mdisraeli wrote: post #280

sseveran wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PowerShell

Powershell, Powershell, Powershell! Seriously, people, if you have to use a windows system, put some time into learning Powershell. * Most simple grep and sed commands are entirely do-able. Bit more verbose syntax, but that comes with a hell of a lot of easy-to-access power * It's all about objects, rather than plain text. This can often be a pain, but Import-Csv and Export-Csv are utter LOVE. Adding additional new p…

Indeed, Powershell is awesome.

But Cygwin is also usefull ;)

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

#287

Post by cstross » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #268

cstross wrote: post #246

Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years. Rather, Microsoft is (or was, in the pre-post-PC world) everywhere because of (a) licensing stitch-ups with hardware vendors and (b) network externalities: get into Corporate IT departments with Office, then people will want (or need) to use the same OS at home, and then you can strong-arm hardware vendor…

The desktop is now irrelevant -- less than 10% of computing devices people use are desktops or laptops: it's all gone mobile frighteningly fast. It's ironic that you probably typed that with a desktop or laptop. Irrelevant? Hardly.

Dirty little secret: most people aren't content creators, even for values of "content" such as discussion topic comments.

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

#288

Post by johnminter » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

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

A couple of items to consider. Does Linux support ALL the applications the programmers need to interact with other people in the company? The answer is "no" in my workplace.

Our company has a lot of legacy VBA code that would need to be replaced. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be smart to replace this. I hated the way VBA changed on every release and broke my code base. The last straw was when I needed to access spreadsheets that used 3rd party VBA modules that were locked. I ported my whole back-end data analysis/report generation code base to Open Source R/Sweave/LaTeX. But I'm just one user and did it myself as a spare time activity.

I still think Visual Studio is a pretty nice development environment for C++. I'm trying to get up to speed with Eclipse. I do prefer Open Source. Now that our corporate budget is REALLY tight, that is a big help. Guess the IT folks think it would cost more to switch than pay the annual tribute to Redmond

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

#289

Post by chimeracoder » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 3:35 PM UTC

pix64 wrote: post #222

chimeracoder wrote: post #18

Linux Mint is actually a very easy and natural transition from Windows. A few years ago, I installed Linux on my parents' desktop (dual-boot)[0] and told them that they were "forbidden" to use any other computer for web browsing, document editing, etc. I told them that this would be more secure, and that's all it took to convince them. I figured that, this way, at least I could fix any of their computer problems remo…

> I figured that, this way, at least I could fix any of their computer problems remotely (over ssh), instead of helping with Windows on the phone. Why did you not set up Windows to be able to do the same thing?

I haven't used Windows in years. I run Linux on all my computers, so it's much easier for me to troubleshoot my parents' problems if they are also running Linux.

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

#290

Post by pbrettb » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #246

Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years. Rather, Microsoft is (or was, in the pre-post-PC world) everywhere because of (a) licensing stitch-ups with hardware vendors and (b) network externalities: get into Corporate IT departments with Office, then people will want (or need) to use the same OS at home, and then you can strong-arm hardware vendor…

Irrelevant to watching movies and listening to music chatting with mates and generally using a computer for the purpose of entertainment maybe? Because the real work needs a real computer. One with a keyboard you can type on, a screen which can show some decent amount of information, printers and mice and compilers and more than 2GB of ram. There are more computers than ever in play, their numbers have been eclipsed by all these toy devices however. That does not mean the real computers are irrelevant at all.

And even for entertainment, are you seriously telling me these little ARM devices with no good input devices, ps-1 calibre graphical capabilities, and MINISCULE screens are making computers which run the latest big games irrelevant? People who are into games have been talking about GTA-V and the like lately, not simple side scrollers and 2d physics games where you launch birds at pigs.