Tomorrow I am going to install openSUSE on a friends computer at his request. This will be the first time I’ve had the opportunity to share openSUSE and the eighth time for Linux in general.
I just love it when I get the chance to pull someone out from underneath Mocrosoft’s thumb.
Wish I could do it more often.
I would like to hear some of your stories and tallies on helping to spread Linux.
Best wishes for your endeavours.
Normaly the installation is not a big problem. Also teaching a willing friend the first lessons isn’t. But giving support might be. I am “managing” an openSUSE installation for a friend. She is realy not very demanding and she is happy with openSUSE. But she is two hours driving away and when there is a problem, analysing on the phone is not that easy. She had two hardware problems last few monthes. In both cases I was able to remote identify them as being hardware and when she went back to the shop it proved that I was right (good for my reputation 
). But it stays tricky.
Also updating to a newer level requires some planning in advance for visiting (she works normal hours) and often boarding.
When one takes care of this (and when the friend is around the corner) a very happy user and manager may be the outcome.
It may be very usefull to make notes or gather documentation (copies of config files) about his installation. Especialy as the “customer base” grows this might save you a lot of embaressment.
Wishing you success,
I’ve been doing the same for years now. Have my own one man company, providing open source solutions for private persons and small businesses. Next to that I’m involved here, drop in at some other forums to provide support, support the linux users around me. Some results:
Converted the management of a theatre company, they run openSUSE on servers and clients now, no going back to the winders. Some of the people working there, use openSUSE at home now.
I manage about 50 computers running openSUSE from my home, through fish, ssh, nomachine. I take care of updating, troubleshooting etc.
Three kids, all IT-raised with open source software, linux deskops. They have no trouble at all using Win or Mac systems.
Where ever it is, I’m willing to explain things over and over again. The dutch simply do not accept that something without a marketprice (i.e. for free) can be of high quality (sometimes I think linux would do better here if it wasn’t for free, but at a 75% * {PRICE_OF_WIN} level.).
The main thing I’ve discovered through the years, is that most people “don’t want to be left alone with it”: a lot of the fear for the unknown disappears if they know there’s someone there to help them. Ssh and NoMachine make it very easy to support people.
Make sure you can ssh into your friends machine, tell him how this will make you able to support him. And continue to do what you do: Spread the word, and the word is LINUX
When I saw your title, my first thought was to congratulate you on your new child.
My second thought was isn’t that rather young to start a kid on Linux?
My third thought was oh I’ve got too much imagination, he’s just helping a friend.
lol!
SSH is a good idea. However, I dont’t feel comfortable enough with the command line to be of any use with it. Is there a gui for it?
@ken_yap
You’re not too far off. Both my kids have computers running openSUSE. The oldest is in 6th grade using KDE and the youngest is in 1st grade. He has the old hand-me-down p2 machine. I have Xfce installed for him.
You can ssh -X and then run YaST on the other end displaying to the local X display, provided the bandwidth is decent. Or maybe combine with NX.
First, setup a useraccount “admin” or whatever for yourself on the machine. That way you will never interfere with other accounts.
Then do:
ssh -X -l admin IP_ADDRESS_OF_REMOTE_PC
If the remote is behing a router, port 22 should be forwarded to the remote PC’s local IP.
The -X option lets you run programs with their GUI.
There’s also the “fish://admin@IP_ADDRESS_OF_REMOTE_PC” in Dolphin/Konqueror.
And when you have not enough bandwdth for the transfering of X, do not forget that YaST also runs with an Ncurses interface. To see how it looks like on your own system, in a terminal window (as root) type
yast
Qicker then any GUI YaST lol!
When this is the case, many people forward a random high port number on the router to port 22 on the system. Thus port 22 is not open on the router and the many attacks fromn the internet on that port will never succeed.
I have it that way, just didn’t want to start throwing too much info.
SSH sounds like an interesting skill to learn.
I think I’ll make it my next project.
I do believe it would be a good idea to practice on the computers in my own house before trying it on someone else’s machine. lol!
p.s. I found a BlackBerry app which would allow you to SSH into a machine from your BlackBerry I didn’t know what it was at the time so didn’t pay it much attention.