I found a link on Linux Online this morning to a blog post titled 11 Things You Haven’t Seen Yet in Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I have been running the Beta version of Feisty for a little over a week now on both a laptop (Dell Inspiron 1300) and an older Dell desktop. I knew I liked it a lot. The wireless stuff all seems to work a lot better, there is continued improvement in the appearance and usability of the desktop, etc., etc. What I did not know is there are a bunch of tools under the hood that make things easier to set up that used to be the biggest impediment to using Linux. This is a HUGE step for people like me. When I set Linux up for myself, I really do not mind spending the time to figure out how to get the sound, wireless, video playback, webcam, networking, and all that other stuff going.
The problem is that I really would like to get other people up and going, too, but I just did not have the time to get everything configured and running for so many different sets of hardware. I have been helping people for years with their Windows systems. I am the main computer “guru” for quite a few assorted grandmas, liberal arts majors, and computer challenged relatives. The worst of these is my father and mother-in-law in Mexico. They have three sons with engineering degrees who work as computer technical resources for Oracle, Symantec, and a large manufacturing firm with hundreds, if not thousands, of PC’s. All three of them live in a Windows world, but cannot seem to find the time to keep their Mother’s computer going. She lives within a mile of one of them and within ten miles of the other two. This is a problem because my wife uses Skype to talk to her mother. We live in the States, so when the computer is not working, the phone bills go way up.
Several things are happening that make Linux a more viable option now. First and foremost, like I described in the first paragraph, it is getting easier to set up and use. Second, I am learning more about using VNC to handle many of the administration tasks required to keep a remote system running. Third, my brothers-in-law, are getting pressure from their work to come up to speed on Linux. I do not know whether that is going to help much. They seem to be able to get to their mother’s house for carne asada after church on Sunday, but they are next to useless at spending the five minutes to keep their mother’s Windows computer running while they are there. On the other hand, nothing from Microsoft has been very interesting or fun to work on for years. I have installed Linux down there a few times before. I tried Mandrake (now Mandriva), Red Hat and then one of the Fedoras, and then one of the earlier Ubuntu’s, but they were pretty impossible to keep going from afar.
We are going down for a visit again in June. I think Feisty has improved to the point where I am willing to try one more time. The applications that have to work for them are Skype, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a photo downloading and viewing program for my Father-in-law’s digital camera. You would think this would be a no-brainer, but I have lowered my expectations dramatically over the years. In the past, the longest any computer has stayed running in their household after I left was a Windows XP computer that lasted for about three weeks. If I am able to set the computer up and keep it running for them for a month after we leave, I will consider this effort a huge success. I will also know that Vista is in really big trouble.