[ale] Ubuntu Linux ROCKS! (The Saga of Miss W)

[aaron]

Ubuntu Linux ROCKS!
Period. End of story.

:-)
... well ... OK ... actually "Ubuntu Rocks" is the
_moral_ of this particular story -- one about
helping a little old lady escape the Mafia$oft thugs
that were trying to snatch her purse by guiding her
across the information highway to the sunny safety
of Free Software park.
:-)

Absurdly overboard analogies aside, the gist of
this saga is that today I delivered the gift of a
"new" computer to a senior citizen on a fixed income
who can't otherwise afford to buy one. She serves
with me on an important political campaign committee
and she was in need of the system so she could be
more productive in that effort. (She did have a
working computer until a couple months back when
she gave it to her daughter in support of her
return to college studies.)

The generosity on my part wasn't as large as might
be implied above, since the donation was just a
fairly old computer that I salvaged with the help
of Ubuntu Linux, but everything about the gift was
very new to the recipient.

The machine was one of the discarded PC systems
that I have in my basement to keep all my stacks
of antique Amiga computers company.  The hardware
is about 10 years old, a generic 600mhz P3 with
256 meg of ram, 10gig HD, CD burner and a floppy
drive. The only hardware adjustment I made was to
plug in a slightly less outdated graphics card.

I had put Ubuntu 8.04 on the system previously,
but to keep this simple and deliver the latest and
greatest I decided to just do a full install of
Ubuntu 9.04. The full install from CD took all
the effort of about 6 mouse click selections
(English. Next. Eastern Time. Next. Use the whole
hard disk. Next.), plus entering a new user name
and password.

Everything on the system came up working on
first boot into the fresh installation, so I
then ran the "add software" utility to install
the "restricted" add ons, the proprietary closed
source bits needed for Flash support and such.
For those keeping score, that was 2 menu selections,
a search on the word "FLASH", 2 mouse clicks and
a password entry.

After the add on bits were automatically downloaded
and installed from the internet, I did a cautionary
reboot. When the Ubuntu Desktop returned, the
software update utility appeared with a list of
recommended updates. I let the utility automatically
download and install all the software and security
updates that had come along since April (09.04 being
the month the version was released and the install
was made) -- just 2 more of those (strenuous) mouse
clicks and another (grueling) password entry and the
installation and updates of the full Linux OS and
all of the commonly used office, internet and media
software was done. With a standard, high speed
internet connection the whole process took less
than 90 minutes.

(-: Fortunately, my fingers get daily exercise,
so they got through the Ubuntu install ordeal of
16 mouse clicks, 4 typed words, and 22 "beverage
lifts while waiting for downloads" without injury.
Just to be safe, though, I recommend that amateurs
should be sure to scratch all itches BEFORE going
solo on an Ubuntu install! :-)

There is no doubt that my (seriously) techno-phobic
senior friend could have done this installation
herself with just two minutes of phone support for
the "Add Software" part, but all my work in restoring
the box, testing the hardware and installing Ubuntu
Linux on the machine only took about a half hour of
actual hands-on activity on my part anyway.

I delivered the computer to Miss W's apartment today
and only had to spend another 10 minutes plugging it
into it's home. She had already had DSL provisioned
on her phone line, so she tried to hand me their "DSL
software" install disk, which she was shocked to see
me decline. I just plugged the phone and ethernet
cables into the provided DSL modem / gateway / wireless
box (which is about 95% likely to be running a version
Linux as well) and we were all go and green lights
for her internet connection.

I then braced myself for a challenge and plugged
in the USB cable of her inkjet printer. The printer
went "click click", the hard drive chattered for
a moment, and then, lo and behold, the Ubuntu
printer configuration utility popped a window onto
the desktop showing that it had collected all the
printer model info, installed the CUPS driver and
was now inviting me to print a test page (which
printed perfectly, BTW). It was a one mouse click
printer install! My friend was amazed, especially
after fretting all morning that she couldn't find
the printer's driver install disk (which clearly
isn't needed with Linux anyway). I was amazed too,
because based on many previous experiences with
many different kinds of computer systems, installing
printers is SUPPOSED to be DIFFICULT! (My geek ego
is feeling a little threatened right now...)

I then spent about an hour with my friend showing her
the basics of the familiar and ubiquitous point and
click icons and menus of the Desktop, running Open
Office, editing and saving documents, and using the
Firefox web browser. She had only ever been exposed
to Windows and Word and IE before, but she was quickly
feeling comfortable with her new Linux computer
environment.  At one point she noted how familiar
the Open Office Writer program seemed, and how
frustrated she has been by the Vista/7 version of
Word because of the way they changed everything in
the user interface [for no reason]. She complained
that Vista/7 made it nearly impossible for her to
accomplish any work within the limited time slots
users are allowed on the computers at the library.

She clearly felt even more comfortable as we side
tracked into some of the background stories of how
the Open Source communities came about and how well
supported her Ubuntu Software was and how she had
unlimited freedom to freely share all of it with
her friends. She was more amazed and excited and
enthralled with the whole idea of her new Linux
computer with each passing minute. You could literally
see the techno-phobia of this sweet 70 year old lady
drain away as she saved her fist Open Office document
and logged into her familiar AOL webmail account on
Firefox and learned that she didn't need to live in
fear of computer technology problems or software
viruses or purse snatching computer thugs any more.

It was truly inspiring to see! So a huge thanks to
the Linux and Free Software communities, with a
special nod to Ubuntu for packaging and supporting
these gifts in such a user empowering way!

Which is why the moral of this very true story
is simply that "Ubuntu Linux ROCKS!".

However, the more important epilog of the saga is
that, as I was leaving the home of my (formerly)
techno-phobic 70 year old friend this afternoon,
she was busy navigating to the Ubuntu.com site so
she could order free Ubuntu Live/Install CD copies
for all of her friends. Seems that Miss W is feeling
very well armed by the freedoms of GNU Linux and the
support of the Ubuntu community now, so all those
Mafia$oft thugs best think twice about vandalizing
her internet neighborhood or grabbing at her
purse anymore!

:-)

peace
aaron