• Brett Legree
  Great post Randy - I've been using Linux a lot more lately (in the form of Ubuntu myself).
  
  What do I like about Ubuntu? Well, it just works - that's something really neat about it. I first used it back at version 4.10 and it is amazing how far it has come in 4 years.
  
  On the weekend, I decided to add my printer (a networked HP2600N) - it just worked. Today, my Logitech bluetooth mouse (that I use at work) - no problem.
  
  To be honest, my work laptop is more useful running Ubuntu than it is running XP and I could do my job better with Ubuntu (if I were allowed to use it at work).
  
  I admit I like Mac too (I have a Macbook Pro) but I'll be picking up a netbook soon - and it will be running Ubuntu for sure, probably the Netbook Remix.
  
  Just a quick inventory - in my house, there are two servers and four laptops (if I count my work laptop) - the servers run Ubuntu, and two of the laptops run Ubuntu (at least part time in the case of my work laptop). There's my Mac (which has Ubuntu in VMware for testing), and then my wife is still a Windows girl... maybe I should put Ubuntu on there with a Vista theme and Gnomenu and see if she falls for it!
• randyjensen
  I can't remember when I first started testing Ubuntu but 4.10 sounds about right. It's pretty crazy to think that you can actually tell an average user to try Linux and not have to give them tech support on day one. In fact I built a computer with my 9 year old nephew last summer and put Ubuntu on it. I think he's called once for some help (when he wanted to put an app on there that needed to be compiled from source).
  
  And I have the same experience with my work laptop. I dual boot Ubuntu and Win XP and while I have to use Windows at work, I feel so much more comfortable in Ubuntu. I think even more surprisingly is how much better Ubuntu runs on it (a Dell) than Windows does.
  
  As far as the Mac goes, my distaste for them lies mainly within the arrogance of the community. I think OSX is a good OS and I think the Mac hardware is the best on the market, and that's not even close. I think this is one of the reasons I have been so drawn to Ubuntu. The community is wide open and wants more people to be apart of it. You see things like Android having to be crippled because of Apple's multitouch patent and then having them threaten Palm. They are the complete opposite of what GNU/Linux is all about.
  
  You have to let me know if you can get her to start using Ubuntu without her knowing. That would be amazing and worth a post of it's own!
  
  Also, if you're having any trouble with using Ubuntu, please let me know. I'm always looking for tutorial ideas!
• Brett Legree
  It is probably easier to get young people on it because they won't have the preconceived notions that a lot of adults have. Most of the folks where I work (and perhaps where a lot of people work) just throw up their hands at the first blip, and call IT support...
  
  Kids won't do that. They'll just try and figure it out. Linux gives them the power to do that.
  
  I'll let you in on a little secret ;) I find myself using that Ubuntu laptop (it is an HP 6710b) more often than my Mac sometimes. The HP screen is higher resolution than the Mac, plus I've just been enjoying really learning with Linux again. I did quite a bit with Gentoo and Slackware a few years back, and then got busy (kids) - now with Ubuntu being so popular, what better way to learn than to immerse myself?
  
  And as you say - it just works so much better than Windows. It feels like you can use the whole computer.
  
  I know what you mean about the difference between the communities. Even on OS X, I'm more drawn to those who do the open source stuff exactly for that reason - they want people to join them.
  
  The Ubuntu experiment may yet happen. I had to recently replace the HDD on my wife's laptop, and when I asked what OS she wanted, she just said "Windows". Vista or XP, I asked? "Windows."
  
  So she actually got Windows 7 :) which means I'll have to replace it before August. I'll probably put Vista back on as that's what she is used to now - but maybe Ubuntu will have to go on there too, masquerading as Vista.
  
  I'll keep you posted as to the results of that, and if I think of anything for tutorial ideas I'll let you know.
  
  (A quick one - have you done any on burning software? A friend of mine may convert to Ubuntu this weekend and CD/DVD burning is something he's concerned about before he goes to it.)
• randyjensen
  How is she liking Win 7? I'm incredibly impressed with what MS has done with it. I installed it on a 5 or 6 year old computer and it ran like a champ. I don't think I'll ever switch back to Windows necessarily, but I will always have a Win computer in some form or fashion.
  
  I agree with @Pablonius Monk that K3B is good stuff. I also really like Brasero.
  
  I'll work on a couple of tuts for both of those soon.
• Brett Legree
  I may also consider putting a Wubi install on there to see if she would like that. Something I ran across for installing Ubuntu via Wubi on 7 right now:
  
  http://www.clububuntu.com/2009/01/how-to-solve-...
  
  I haven't verified it yet but this claims you need to run Wubi via compatibility mode as Vista or Ubuntu won't show up in the boot loader. I'll let you know how it goes.
  
  :)
• randyjensen
  That's interesting. I wonder why is works with Vista but not 7? I didn't think the boot manager was changed from Vista to 7. Weird.
  
  It sounds like it should work, let me know!
• Brett Legree
  I thought it was kind of weird too. I will say this though, I'm getting used to things working really well with Linux when they don't work anywhere else!
  
  For example - my oldest son's laptop (we gave him my wife's old machine last year) - he is 7, and during his learning he sort of killed Windows XP. No viruses, he just started moving files around and so on!
  
  I decided to put Ubuntu on it a while back - but the CD-ROM had failed. I tried an external CD-ROM, no deal. I also tried putting the live image on a USB stick. Again, it didn't work.
  
  So I took the HDD out and put it in a USB enclosure, then took the HDD out of one of our other laptops so that there wouldn't be any mistakes. I plugged the USB drive into the laptop, installed Ubuntu onto it, and had a look at fstab and menu.lst - I noticed something.
  
  Ubuntu (and I'm not sure what other distros) seem to be very smart these days and are referring to the device by some kind of device ID rather than physical location.
  
  I had a hunch it would work if I put it back into the laptop without editing the files, and I was right - it just booted.
  
  Try that with any other OS!
• randyjensen
  First of all, the fact that a 7 year old managed to use Windows and not get it filled with malware and viruses is amazing by itself!
  
  I totally agree about the drive identification. I think the way it works is by assigning the drive a UUID. This is the ID I ended up referring to in my fstab (not something like /dev/sda1).
  
  It works like a charm.
• Brett Legree
  Yeah, he's pretty smart :) I did help him a bit, putting Firefox on there and hiding IE, and a few other things.
  
  Maybe a bit too smart / inquisitive... I didn't want to limit him so I gave him full rights to everything. And I guess he started peeking around in the file system and moving stuff until he moved the wrong thing and it started acting up!!!
  
  UUID, that's right - I guess I needed a coffee when I wrote my last comment.
• randyjensen
  He must learn from his dad :)
• Brett Legree
  LOL that's so true... I'm all self-taught, so the first couple of years were "interesting" with my wife getting mad at me every time I broke something on the one computer we had at the time.
• randyjensen
  I'm completely with you. For me, if it's not broke, then I just haven't had time to 'fix' it....
• Brett Legree
  At first she didn't notice it wasn't Vista and said she liked the wallpaper! Then when IE8 crashed a couple of times, she realized it was Windows 7 (from the writing at the bottom right of the screen I guess, or maybe she had to restart) - so I just said, "use Firefox!" which I had installed already - and so far, no more complaints.
  
  I quite like it too (I run it in Fusion on my Mac - much quicker than Vista in the VM) and I agree, I think MS has done great things with it. It will be my default VM of choice and as you say, I'll also have it around on bare metal somewhere when it goes gold.
  
  I used K3B back on Slackware and really liked it. I've been using Brasero on Ubuntu so far but will likely put K3B on there as well.
  
  I hope my friend makes the jump - though he said he was successful in reinstalling XP so he may need some "help" moving to the dark side :)
• Pablonius Monk
  Hi Brett: I'm a big fan of "K3B" for burning cd/DVDs. It is my favorite cd/DVD burning software on any platform.

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