Over the last few days I have installed and configured Ubuntu Linux on a friend's laptop. It was an older Sony VAIO and it either needed WindowsXP reinstalled or a fresh cup of Ubuntu. My friend is a avid Windows user but was open to the idea of trying Linux. He wanted a copy of Xandros he saw at a store installed. I told him that it was unecessary to purchase a copy of Linux. The Xandros marketing was slick.. it showed all sorts of Windows applications running in a Linux environment. Of course part of the price tag was Cross-Over Office.
The Ubuntu install on the Sony VAIO went rather smoothly. One of the primary concerns was what was going to replace the coveted iTunes. Amarok was the choice and it worked out rather nicely. He was able to watch DVDs, play MP3s, WMAs, and WMVs. Open Office took over for MS Office rather nicely. The WiFi worked perfectly where in Windows it did not. Hooking up and syncing an iPod couldn't be easier. The one minor thing that didn't work was the media card reader on the side of the laptop.
The biggest thing to over come was the training aspect of migrating from a Windows enviroment to a Linux environement where things are well.. slightly different.
The laptop was a solid build, I would be happy to use it. I received the phone call today (after only 36hours) I had been expecting. "Dude, you are gonna' be pissed at me." I thought that he crashed the system or something. "Can you just put Windows back on? I've been trying to play with these updates and I just want to go back to Windows."
The words made me cringe. All in all I spent about 6hours on that little machine and now... I will be shoving Windows back down it's throat. This was the first time I installed and configured Linux for a non-Linux user. I was interested in how this was going to work out.
For those of you who have done this for someone you know what I am talking about when I say that reality really sets in when you are setting up Linux for a Windows user. The average Windows user just wants things to work with little or no thought. In a Linux environment for Linux users we think that Linux is at that point. While I am setting Linux up on my friend' s laptop.. I am explaining the steps to get things configured properly... "Now we just need to do 'apt-get install'. This is too much for the Windows user to choke on. They just want a .exe file to click on. For those of us used to a Linux machine, we can get it to do whatever we want and sometimes things need a bit more tweeking. And usually it doesn't seem too tasking for us.
So when I say reality set in during this Linux install for a friend... I mean I realized that as much as I thought Linux was easy and didn't understand why I haven't seen more and more installs around, it was apparent that it is still complex to someone who is used to Windows.
I'll still try to win over Windows users by spreading the good word about the powerful Linux OS. But for now... this test has FAILED. I'll be installing Windows on that machine in the next day or so.
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