The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment

Re:The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment by phaedrus on Monday April 28, 2008 @12:59PM (#175757)

We installed Ubuntu on all the machines in the computer lab. Apart from the students who already used Linux, who just argued over which distribution, the CS students who'd only been exposed to Windows unanimously expressed they hated Linux. I asked them why, what was wrong, and it always came back to the fact that it was unfamiliar. I'm not sure how you fix that, because in effect their gripe was that it was not "exactly like Windows". It's yet another bad effect of the Microsoft monopoly - people believe that Computer == Windows, because they don't get exposed to anything else.

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Re:The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment by dgabriel on Monday April 28, 2008 @01:44PM (#175798)

Frankly, when people move from Macs to Linux, or Mac to PC, or Linux to PC, they generally dislike it at first. All the shortcuts and techniques you've internalized are thrown out the window, so it feels awkward and slow. I read about this effect at one point, but I don't remember where...

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Re:The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment by kirse on Monday April 28, 2008 @04:57PM (#176006)

From personal experience I had no problem learning Mac-OS, which I stumbled around in at first but didn't experience any major problems until much further down the road (when I was capable of dealing with them).

On the other hand I downloaded Ubuntu last month, and after taking several hours just to get onboard wifi working (xps m1330), I lost all desire to use it further.

For me, gradual hurdles vs. massive roadblock after roadblock is the difference between enjoying the learning process instead of dreading it.

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Re:The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment by goofygrin on Monday April 28, 2008 @06:35PM (#176081)

>> after taking several hours just to get onboard wifi working (xps m1330)

I've got an xps m1330 and it's run Gutsy and now Hardy without any issues with the Wifi.

I've got the Intel 3945ABG card in there.

I had the N card in for a while and couldn't ever get it to work well with Gutsy.

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Re:The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment by aoeuid on Tuesday April 29, 2008 @10:15PM (#177218)

About those pesky shortcuts: My suggestion would be to make windows shortcuts available by default:

Win+D = minimize/unminimize all windows

Win+R = Terminal

I also added Win+G = Gedit and Win+F = Search (which really needs some improvement)

Finally, standardize some behavior! Gedit and your ctrl+alt+pgup to change tabs, I'm looking at you.

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