Dell Inspiron Laptop w/Ubuntu for Mom?

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bb_wolfe said:
Just one example of thousands that prove you're a know-nothing wet-behind-the-ears basement-boi. There was a time where you didn't sit in front of a computer in your mother's basement (yes, you do live with mommy still, right?) playing WoW and making interwebz monies.

Guys like Kroc fit a square into a circle, then a triangle, then the rest of the shapes and defined an industry. What have you done chinmasta?
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Yes, I still live with my mommy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's common practice to live with your parents while you are under 18. No, I don't play WoW. Chinmasta? Why do people assume that everyone's avatar is a picture of himself? That's CorrectAD a.k.a. Jeremy Estes a.k.a. douchebag in my avatar. Feel free to call him chinmasta.

I would say I've accomplished quite a bit so far in my life, not just on the interwebz, probably a lot more than 99% of people my age. And I have no plans of making my living on the interwebz, so considering that this is just a temporary hobby until I'm done with college, I'm doing pretty damn well by both hobby standards and job standards. :)

And I still maintain that the Ray Croc story is not an example of fitting a square peg into a round hole, but rather finding the square hole. After all, isn't that what innovation is? Finding something new? Innovation is not forcing a soloution but rather discovering one. Why would that article call him a "pioneer" if he didn't discover a new method - leveraging real estate as a business model. He didn't try to force an already existing method to work for his company, but instead invented a whole new one.

"Today, companies engaged in delivering pizzas, processing insurance claims, or selling toys benefit from the kinds of systems that Ray Kroc pioneered."

That doesn't sound like fitting a square peg into a round hole to me. It sounds like finding the round hole.

But this argument is beside my point. I'm saying that your attitude and reasons for using Ubuntu don't make any sense. Nicky put it best, "Why would you want to give her an OS that requires constant coaching, has pathetic support for most windows apps, and has lousy support for most peripheral hardware like cameras and such, when you could just install XP?"

All you're doing is creating a headache for you to provide support to your mother and a headache for her to figure out how to use this shit. Yet you think it's a good idea to give her Ubuntu because YOU prefer it over XP. Personally I don't know why you prefer it over XP, but I'm sure you have your reasons. But judging by HER needs, XP is definitely a better solution than Ubuntu, no question.

But you're trying to force Ubuntu on her because you've found it best for your needs. The people who make the most money are definitely NOT the ones with your attitude. Stubborness like this will get you nowhere. You should choose a solution based on the needs of a problem, not your own bias. It's the same thing with programming; although python might be the best solution for a project, someone like you would refuse to use it simply because you like PHP better.

Being stubborn is one of the biggest obstacles to success, which is demonstrated by the current financial, social, and personal status of 99% of Linux fanboys. Sorry for stereotyping but your post seemed to fit you right into that mold. ;)
 


chatmasta said:
Yes, I still live with my mommy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's common practice to live with your parents while you are under 18. No, I don't play WoW. Chinmasta? Why do people assume that everyone's avatar is a picture of himself? That's CorrectAD a.k.a. Jeremy Estes a.k.a. douchebag in my avatar. Feel free to call him chinmasta.

I would say I've accomplished quite a bit so far in my life, not just on the interwebz, probably a lot more than 99% of people my age. And I have no plans of making my living on the interwebz, so considering that this is just a temporary hobby until I'm done with college, I'm doing pretty damn well by both hobby standards and job standards. :)

And I still maintain that the Ray Croc story is not an example of fitting a square peg into a round hole, but rather finding the square hole. After all, isn't that what innovation is? Finding something new? Innovation is not forcing a soloution but rather discovering one. Why would that article call him a "pioneer" if he didn't discover a new method - leveraging real estate as a business model. He didn't try to force an already existing method to work for his company, but instead invented a whole new one.

"Today, companies engaged in delivering pizzas, processing insurance claims, or selling toys benefit from the kinds of systems that Ray Kroc pioneered."

That doesn't sound like fitting a square peg into a round hole to me. It sounds like finding the round hole.

But this argument is beside my point. I'm saying that your attitude and reasons for using Ubuntu don't make any sense. Nicky put it best, "Why would you want to give her an OS that requires constant coaching, has pathetic support for most windows apps, and has lousy support for most peripheral hardware like cameras and such, when you could just install XP?"

All you're doing is creating a headache for you to provide support to your mother and a headache for her to figure out how to use this shit. Yet you think it's a good idea to give her Ubuntu because YOU prefer it over XP. Personally I don't know why you prefer it over XP, but I'm sure you have your reasons. But judging by HER needs, XP is definitely a better solution than Ubuntu, no question.

But you're trying to force Ubuntu on her because you've found it best for your needs. The people who make the most money are definitely NOT the ones with your attitude. Stubborness like this will get you nowhere. You should choose a solution based on the needs of a problem, not your own bias. It's the same thing with programming; although python might be the best solution for a project, someone like you would refuse to use it simply because you like PHP better.

Being stubborn is one of the biggest obstacles to success, which is demonstrated by the current financial, social, and personal status of 99% of Linux fanboys. Sorry for stereotyping but your post seemed to fit you right into that mold. ;)
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HINT: It's really hard to argue back at you when you make logical, mature, and creative responses like that. cheers.

If you're under 18 and taking the bull by the horns, I have nothing but respect. I started my first business at 19, after being booted from college, and haven't looked back. I broke 100K/year at 22, and the guys I would have graduated with were working entry level $40K IT jobs. I'm a whore presently, but by January 09, that will very likely change once I decide on what I want to be when I grow up.

Back to Ubuntu. Like I said to the other guy, Ubuntu isn't the silver bullet (mm-mmm, beer) but for just internet and email, it's pretty darn close. Yes you're correct there are issues administratively, but by and large, his mom isn't going to wander far from her familiar icons.

In the end, she'll have to adapt to anything he gives her. It was nice to finally have a mature argument with you.
 
This is why I fucking love WickedFire -- helpful advice and shit throwing all in one thread.

I'm going to go with Vista or XP*. Thanks for all the contributions.


* that way I can steer her to customer support lines when I don't have time to help.
 
My mom took 1 week with help and took about a month to get used to wine. I showed her to search wine DB for her games and she doesn't even try messing with games that aren't rated nicely. Once I setup EXEs to default to wine she was on her way.
I did have a hard time convincing her that not all windows programs run in linux, not that I didn't want her installing her stuff on my PC.
 
Haha, no she bought a desktop with it and prefers it. I don't make my mothers choices. ;)
 
I switched my folks over to Ubuntu couple months back, they absolutely love it. All their periphs' worked immediately except some shitty Dell (Lexmark) All-in-One printer.

W/ any bit of linux experience, or pre-school knowledge of Google search, one can get Dreamweaver, photoshop, adwords-editor etc. going no problem w/o any use of VMs or 'sneaky sneaky.' (My day-job VPN requires an XP VM.) No virus's, no spyware, no bloat and anything strange I ssh/vnc into the machine and show/walk my dad though what he's trying to do.

While I'd agree it's not mainstream, and that Ubuntu kinda boffed their 8.04 release, it's getting razor close. Only thing I miss on Linux is iTunes. There's really nothing available that competes. (I keep one XP machine around for that.)
 
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