On 22/04/2008, McLauchlan, Kevin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hehehe. I once installed Ubuntu telling her that it was the latest > > Windows. Not to be malicious, but because I knew that she had been > > brainwashed by MS and I knew that all she does is surf the web (no > > email, no Office, no chat, only Firefox). Only next week, almost a > > year after the install, am I going to tell her that she's been running > > Linux for a year and ask if she wants to upgrade to the newest Ubuntu > > 8.04. > > The desktop was KDE, right?
Yes, but I'll not upgrade her to 4.0.x just yet. I'll start using the 4.x series at 4.1, and then I'll consider moving my users over. > When I first read this, I thought it was amusing and nothing more. > > Then I re-thought. Why ask her if she wants to update? She hasn't > noticed anything, and she's happy. From her point of view, there's > nothing to change. All you would be doing is: > > a) making a point that would likely go over her head (or cause her eyes > to glaze over in profound lack of interest) > > b) confuse her - or irritate her because you'd be spending an hour or > two tying up her computer. > > Moreover, if you DID update to newest Ubuntu, then from her point of > view either nothing would have changed, or some niggling appearance > thingie (that you wouldn't even notice) would have changed and it would > irritate her. Well, I initially planned on telling her it's Linux (the word Ubuntu would have gone over her head) after a week or so, but the time was never right. So this time, I want to ask her if she's ready to try Linux, and only after she discovers how familiar it is will I tell her that she's been running it for a year now. Or maybe I won't tell her that she's been using it for a year, and let her come to that conclusion on her own. > If it's run anything like Opensuse, then her current ubuntu should be > good for at least two more years before support is dropped and you/she > can't get pre-packaged security updates. At that point, you'd want to > update just so it would be easy to remain current... for the next three > years of no upgrades, no touching. Of course, I would not have her running an unsupported OS. > If she was looking for an upgrade of some sort, it's far more likely > that she'd be interested in a browser upgrade. Though where she might > have heard about such things is hard to say, if she doesn't even do > e-mail or messaging. Actually, I must correct a little white lie. She doesn't know it, but she'd be interested in an OOo update. She's still on 2.2 I think, and while she doesn't _create_ new documents, I happen to know that she's opened documents from others and it sometimes does not display correctly. OOo 2.4 will be much better. I had considered putting Word and PowerPoint views in Wine for her, but that was only after she discovered OOo by herself (The OS opened it automatically. I don't know why it didn't open KOffice, but good thing it didn't!). In any case, I have her trained to request PDF's when she gets .doc files, which is a Good Thing (tm). > I'd say, share your smug satisfaction with us, but don't bother rubbing > it into your friend's face. She's not interested. She's happy now. She's > happy with you. Why spoil any of that? Ah, a married man. You are correct, I shouldn't rock the boat. > Of course, if you have an argument and she throws out some snide comment > about you and your silly Linux stuff, and her beloved Windows is just > fine... well THEN you really hafta break silence and squash her > mercilessly... but not 'til then. :-) I'll save it for the right occasion. Thanks for convincing me. At minimum, you saved me an install. At maximum, you've saved much more. Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
