Deirdre Harvey wrote:
My 50+ year old parents (decidedly non-geeky) parents don't
seem have issues with their Kubuntu machine they use for web,
email & ksirtet (tetris).
My 90+ year old Grandmother (also non-geeky) also doesn't
seem to have issues with Debian + Kmail.
Did they set those machines up all by themselves or did you help them a
little bit? Do they call you if they need a bit of help?
Yup, I set them up, pointed them in the right direction however I'm not
really sure this is *that* relevant.
We used to, a long while ago, be an all windows household, and I was
giving them the same level of support then. In fact, I was giving them
more because about 6 months in, despite it having "bulletproof" windows
security stuff, it was still running considerably more slowly -
something they were complaining about.
Having a helpful geek in the family can go a long way to easing the fear
of using systems that other "mere users" (yuck) might struggle with.
Well sure. This is definitely true. For what it's worth my Uncle is an
"old school" GNU/Linux hacker, my Brother-in-law is an ex-army GNU/Linux
sysadmin (who spurred me into all this!) and so I guess it has produced
an encouraging environment for "users" in my close family to move over.
For a "power user" such as my brother (who knows what he's doing but
needs help when it all goes wrong) then it was really a matter of
evaluating what he uses his computer for and installing the relevant
software.
Basically I'm accusing you of being their tech support ;)
So absolutely, I am tech support when needed. :)
Tech support also includes basic training - ie "howto use a file manager
to organise documents you have created" <- something I still haven't
managed to communicate the concept of yet to my mother.
I don't know, I do feel that my work load is considerably reduced now
they are on ubuntu, partly because I have some idea of where to start
troubleshooting issues without just telling them to reboot. :)
Anyway, that's a little bit of my story.
Tim
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