Linux Installs and Children...

Colin McGregor colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Fri Dec 11 18:14:55 UTC 2009


On 12/11/09, Marcelo Cavalcante <kalibslack-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Haha...
>
> Interesting story.
>
> The fact is that human beings tend to fear the unknown. Because they
> are adapted to Windows they start to fear Linux thinking it will be
> difficult or even impossible to learn. This fear eventually push them
> away from the simple act of TESTING the new System.

Unfortunately true. a pain faced not only by those of us in the Linux
world, but also the Mac and the other alternate OSs (such as the *BSD
folks)...

> Like everything in our life.
>
> It's different with children. They have open minds and are always full
> of curiosities trying to know and understand everything that is
> available to them. They do not have the fear of "change".

Yes, ... Children just don't KNOW that "this is stuff is HARD!", thus
it is easy enough for them :-) .

> But if we have the chance to do the same test with people who also
> have an open mind, we will see similar results.
>
> An example of this occurred in my girlfriend's house. 2 years ago I
> installed linux on her home's desktop. This machine is used by her (21
> years), her sister (13 years) and her mother (62 years).
>
> Each of them has a different profile and use different applications
> but all of them got adapted quickly and can realize all their needs
>
> After 13 months using Linux on her desktop my girlfriend bought a
> laptop. The same came with Windows and she brought me asking to
> install Linux on it. She had become accustomed to Linux and already
> felt better than Windows.
>
> She even comments with her colleagues at university about how her
> machine it no longer lives full of viruses. hehe

Yes, I've been asked what sort of anti-virus software I use. My answer
is that I don't use ant-virus software, I haven't used anti-virus for
years and since giving up on MS Windows I haven't had ANY problems
with viruses :-) .

When people wonder about the pain of moving to Linux, I point out that
it is a one-time pain, as opposed to the ongoing pains of virus
software / other security flaws, and Microsoft prices / upgrade fees.
I was willing to take my pain up front, and haven't looked back...

I first seriously looked at Linux back in 1993, when it was seriously
considered for use as the OS to drive the Toronto Free-Net. Mind you
for various reasons, including the long term loan of some hardware by
Sun Microsystems, Solaris was the first production OS for the Toronto
Free-Net... There are times when Linux isn't quite the right answer,
fortunately those cases are becoming fewer and fewer over time :-) .

Colin.

> cheers
>
> ---
> -  °v°   Marcelo Cavalcante Rocha / Kalib
> - /(_)\  ITIL V3 Foundation Certified | Certified Scrum Master
> -  ^ ^   Usuário Linux #407564 / Usuário Asterisk #1148
> - GNU-Linux - Livre, Poderoso e Seguro
> - TUX-CE Member - www.tux-ce.org
> - Archlinux-br Developer Team - http://archlinux-br.org
> - KDE Brasil Member
> - TLUG Member - Toronto Linux User Group
> - http://www.marcelocavalcante.net
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Colin McGregor <colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
> wrote:
>> Ran across the following story about a 5 year old girl attempting to
>> do an Ubuntu Linux install.
>>
>> http://www.gnomejournal.org/article/88/the-un-scary-screwdriver
>>
>> As it turned out she couldn't do it on her own, at points she needed
>> the help of her older brother, brother being 6 years old...
>>
>> From time to time I do introductory talks on Linux, and the above is a
>> great story, question is do I tell adults that I am attempting to get
>> them to the level of what two sub-7 year old children can do  :-)  ?
>>
>>
>> Colin McGregor
>> --
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> --
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> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>
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