On Thursday 01 May 2003 07:16, expatriate wrote:
Greetings Being the de facto neighbourhood computer expert/admin/geek, I've come across a situation where I might need the assistance of someone more experienced. I've volunteered to facilitate bringing a couple from the 20th to the 21st century. Their current system is a 10+ years old HP computer with a 40MB disk running Windows 3.11. He rarely uses the computer and most of his exposure to it is an occasional game of chess. She does a fair amount of Word (MS Word 6.0) and Excel (didn't check but probably the same vintage). At present, they have no internet connectivity but they feel the pressure ( "can't I just send you an email?"). I've established their needs as follows: 0) ADSL hardware 1) Web browsing and email 2) Word processing and spread sheets 3) CDROM reading/writing (don't have writing abilities at present) 4) Ability to get digital camera pictures into their computer so his artwork can be placed on eBay (have yet to get camera) 5) Printing to an HP 660 printer
My concern is that if I build this for them with Linux, I would be the only local source of help. If I build this with Windows, more of their friends could assist them when I'm not around or when I leave the country for good. Obviously I would prefer not to promote Microsoft products. At the same time, their budget is modest.
So I guess the main questions are: Can Suse 8.2 handle neophytes with limited point and click experience? Can anyone share a similar experience?
TIA and Cheers
I think 8.2 could do this just fine assuming the people you are talking about are reasonably competent computer *users*... i.e. they can usually follow menus and/or find they way through menu and comprehend what the menus are allowing them to do. My wife (she wasn't at the time) switched to SuSE 8.0 from WindowsME overnight with very few problems. Understand, her main use of Windows was email, browsing, and word processing which meant that the switch to Linux was easy to do.... using Kmail, Mozilla, and StarOffice. I would say it took minimal hand-holding to start her off because she was competent with menus and finding things... (and now she's fiddling with her KDE screen savers and background in ways I've never bothered to look into. <g>) On the one hand, there are less people to help with Linux as you suggest, but on the other hand, you (from anywhere) can get into the machine and help with problems (if you set it up for ssh entry) When she did the switch to Linux, she was living 140 miles away from (our eventual house) and so many times when she had a problem, I was not around. In one case, the / partition filled up because some log file took off and filled the disk. I was able to ssh to her machine and find the problem and fix it. I've also put an icon on her desktop remotely, modified her spam settings for email, and many other small fixes all done remotely. Even upgraded moz for her. So... if you set it up right for them and give them some minimal training... I think they could handle it. Depends on how comfortable all of you are with it.