The wife and daughter are use to using Windows XP or Vista for their computer. I’m configuring an old Dell D600 (P4/1.4, 2GB DDR MB) with Vista for them to use. All they do is get on the internet and maybe right a paper now and then. I want to switch them to OpenSUSE because it would be easier on me.
All the maintenance for a Vista computer is just crazy (ie. Viruses, fragmentation).
I’m going to leave them with their Windows for the simple fact that it keeps me in the know, within our beloved field. Even though I love Linux, I have to know how to fix and support XP and Vista.
Choose another family. rotfl!
1: Put Zenwalk on an alternative partition.
2: Vista breaks.
3: They grudgingly use Zenwalk in the interim, and realise how cool linux actually is.
4: ???
5: Profit!
Just do like I do and bite the bullet and let them run Windows and then fix it when it breaks. It keeps me in practice and keeps them happy.
The Bible clearly dictates that in order for you not to burn in Hell for eternity, it is highly recommended to use Linux. Any other OS will lead straight to Hell where you will not only burn but also you will be tormented by force to use a highly fragmented Windows ME for eternity! No “buts” and no questions allowed. God has clearly spoken 
The house is 100% openSUSE.
When friends ask me to help with their windows, I always try to hammer it down to them that I am in no way capable of doing that. They look at me if they would say, why don’t you want to help us, we know you can do it. Then I tell them I do not even have an antivirus program on my system. After that they are glad they did not let such a dangerous person like me loose om their precious windows computer. lol!
I agree with this strategy! In fact, I too use this excuse to force others to switch.
My home computer runs openSUSE 11.1 and both my 2 kids and wife are very happy.
My two younger sisters have no problem using OpenSuSE 11.0 with KDE 3.x.x as their desktop. They found their way around pretty easily what with all the big icons and intuitive Kicker menu.
The great thing is that they don’t risk losing all their work as they would have back when they were using Windows XP.
The D600 has been running OpenSUSE 11.1 for a few weeks now and the wife doesn’t have any problems. Surfing the web or composing documents. The young one player her online board games with Firefox. I tell you as long as Firefox is working they don’t care. rotfl!
I’ve got openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 2 on my Dell D400 Laptop, but that’s just for testing purposes. For “production” it is using Ubuntu 9.04.
We currently do not have any Windows systems running at home since the Windows system BSOD and I never bothered to repair it (did use a LiveCD to copy the files off to the server though).
I have been using Linux for over 10 years now. I don’t own Windows at all. Because of this, My family also uses Linux exclusively at home. My daughter, who is 11, says she wants a laptop with Linux. She flat out refuses to have Windows. My parents have Windows, and my daughter has been on their computer, and she hates it. At school they also use Windows, and hates it to. When she says she uses Linux, her classmates call her a liar because they have never heard of Linux. My wife also prefers Linux over anything else.
What I did with my wife in the beginning was I learned Linux, and had a dual boot. After a while I stopped supporting Windows. When Windows blue screened 5 times in one day, my wife decided that was enough. We never looked back.
I got’s my ways. :P>:)rotfl!
My family and linux is no happy story.
My mother thinks linux is evil, my dad and old brother are absolutely convinced linux doesn’t exist, and I’m secretely running windows, my younger brother needs his games (this can be said about pretty much all my friends… It would be true for me too, but school doesn’t leave time for games :P), and my sister thinks that linux is ugly and that my desktop is pretty.
This is what I do with most of my friends 
Why that? Don’t you use Linux at all?
Thankfully, I finally got one kidney stone of “Linux Bliss” solved. My wife was getting VERY frustrated because she couldn’t print from the laptop to the shared printer.
She was getting close to wanting Windows back!
But now all is sort-of well in the household with regards of the parents at least, though I need to do some preemptive strikes and install some apps under WINE to stop some future rants which I know are coming…
Just recently Windows broke on the family desktop and I kinda forced Ubuntu on it, saying “I will not put up with all this fixing anymore”. So far the only one who is silently complaining is my sister. Yahoo Messenger is missing. I know there are other IMs out there but they are missing the functionalitys of Yahoo Messenger.
> I know there are other IMs out there but they are
> missing the functionalitys of Yahoo Messenger.
have you tried Pidgin? (i do not know what YM functionalities there
are, but i do know i can communicate with folks on YM with Pidgin)…
–
natural_pilot
Actually, the closest you’ll get to Yahoo’s IM, I’ve found, is with GYachI.
I’ve been using that for when I want to use my webcam since Pidgin and Empathy does not support webcams and Kopete keeps crashing on me.
I don’t know if it is in any repositories or you’ll have to install by hand.
Well I took a look however it doesn’t really seem to do the trick. Thanks however.
When I re-installed my bro’s computer, I dual-booted XP with Mandriva 2009. Then one day, windows kicked the bucket. They had no choice but to use the Linux partition. Man, they were glad about using Linux especially when there was the big scare about conficker. rotfl!
From then on, my family is liking Linux. Currently downloading the DVD to install opensuse on the Desktop. Mandriva got annoying after i started to play with opensuse. lol
Is it me or is the FTP servers really really really slow. Taking more than one day to download at 32KB/s :’(:’(rotfl!