On Tuesday 28 December 2010 13:44:31 Martin Schlander wrote:
Tirsdag den 28. december 2010 13:19:32 skrev Kim Leyendecker:
I work together with some older people (60-70 years of life) and try to teach them some computer knowledge. I also say often that it will be easier to use a Linux-distro like openSUSE. So I ask myself, how I can say these people that openSUSE is better (easier) for them then Windows.
For the elderly I'd say the main selling points are:
* No viruses and spyware * Cheap/gratis * Doesn't require latest/greatest hardware * Everything you need out of the box (almost) * Single click (default in KDE at least, the elderly often struggle with doubleclicking)
I consider these selling points for most casual users :-)
They use Windows 7 and sometimes their are some really big problems they can´t fix by themselves. So they ask me. I think that openSUSE is easier for them because you just need to update your packages and don´t download a new exe-file for keep your system up-to-date.
Maybe we can make something (e.g. videos or pdf-files/presentations) for that people that they may use openSUSE and better understand their computers
I think that to use any desktop computer - regardless of your age or your operating system - you need either:
A) To have the skills, time and motivation to learn enough yourself, or; B) Someone relatively close to you who can help you out
And ~90-95% don't meet requirement A. Therefore I think the trick is to target the 5-10% who are helping out the rest (i.e. "the kid next door" is the gatekeeper to the computers of the elderly).
But of course I take any opportunity to advertise http://opensuse-guide.org/ which I think could be a reasonable fit also for elderly people who are genuinely interested in reading and learning, and it has a few embedded videos etc.
+1 We set up our grandmas system with suse+kde right away, she still couldn't install the printer herself, but we did that for her in 5 minutes and now she obviously only needs to turn it on and send pages. We kept her interface consistent (yeah, that means icons on the desktop) and she knows where to find what and how to turn it of. So now she does her mahjong games, kword, firefox, kmail, xbmc and skype with ease and doesn't want more. But my grandma ain't the type of person strolling through the local tech store looking for fun software like 'garden planer' or 'photo album creator'. This kind of person is my (non-related) grandpa, and even if that might work with wine that is just not the kind of stuff you can handle like you install some junk on windows. So over all it comes down to what the people want to do, I think most are happy with a working browser, email and photo viewer Regards, Karsten -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org