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Ubuntu for Mother in-law's computer?

K

kornphlake

Golden Member
I'm going to be giving my Mother in-law my old Athlon 2500+ computer as I've finally upgraded. She's had nothing but computer problems in the past and I've been unable to successfully provide tech support over the phone, apparently she's had viruses that have caused the problems. I thought I'd just reinstall Windows XP with automatic updates enabled, some anti-virus and a software firewall, then let her take it. I'm concerned that I'll get wrangled back into the over the phone tech support situation and I'm really not very good at instructing people what to do over the phone, I'm a lot better sitting down in front of a computer and fixing problems

I have Ubuntu 8.04 running on a proxy server/content filter in the garage and I installed 10.04 on my new computer while I'm awaiting a couple other parts to come in and I'm pretty pleased with Ubuntu for both. I don't consider myself particularly experienced, but I'm starting to shed some of the newbieness. I'm thinking that it might be easier to set up the computer with Ubuntu rather than XP, if for no other reason than remote desktop and ssh server so I could log in from my home and fix any problems she might have without trying to explain things over the phone, especially if it's command line based. Linux should be less prone to viruses and malware too, so it's less likely that the computer will work fine when I turn it over and stop working a couple months later.

My only concern is that my father in-law, who is slightly more computer literate, wouldn't be likely to help at all with questions like "I forgot how to check my email" or "where is the button to look at my pictures" since all he's used at work is windows.

I realize this is like asking if I should buy a mustang on a mustang forum, but is Ubuntu a good idea for someone who doesn't really understand computers? My mother in-law only wants to be able to send and receive email and look at facebook, perhaps occasionally print directions from google maps or look up movie times.
 
Linux is great for people that don't understand computers for the reasons you've already listed. As long as her printer is supported she should have no problem doing those basic things.

But as you mentioned, the problems will most likely come from her husband since he's fairly technical. I would really suggest you run it by him since I'm assuming he'll be the first to hear about any issues since he's in the same house as her. As long as they both understand that it's not Windows, they shouldn't expect it to work just like Windows and to consult you before buying anything new for that PC you should be fine.
 
Installed Linux Mint 9 on several computers in my church's internet cafe. No problems. It's intuitive enough that people figure out what to do in a matter of seconds.

Oh.. start button.

Oh, programs menu.

Oh, firefox.

Oh... open office.

etc.

It's also unfamiliar enough that you don't have people going "oh just change this setting i know it will work".

It kind of gets people to just leave the system alone and use it for what it is. And since it's Linux, less chances of viruses and malware.
 
I agree with installing Linux Mint.

Similarly laid out how most people are used to so they can get things done, but different enough that they wont "know enough to be dangerous"
 
I agree with Linux Mint 9.

But here's something else you should think about.
Get a free DynDNS account, and add a script that runs inadyn (dyndns updater software) daily (you can use crontab). Then add your own admin_user, and install vnc4server and ssh and when you go over, set up their router to forward port 22 and 5900 to the Ubuntu box. Make sure you set up a VNC password

Then when they have a problem, you can
ssh -XC -L 5901:localhost:5900 yourhost.dyndns.org -l admin_user -N

Then open up your VNC client and connect to localhost:1 or localhost:5901 (depend on your client choice). This creates an encrypting SSH tunnel for VNC to operate over. Then you can enter your VNC password and control their Ubuntu box. Then to kill the tunnel, just Ctrl-C the terminal.

Note:
Inadyn has a configuration file that sets up your DynDNS user and password. There's instruction on how to set it up. Then in crontab (execute sudo crontab -e), add this line:
0 12 * * * /path/to/inadyn/script
This runs it every day at noon.
 
My snarky comment aside... ()🙂

I agree with the above posts!

The first time I installed Mint (Mint 6, I *think*) a friend walked by and said, "Nice Windows Clone."

LoL! I was initially offended by his comment, but...

Mint would be a good compromise. I judge that most Windows users would feel comfortable with it, after a few minutes.
 
Mint looks interesting, I'm a little turned off by the latest release of Ubuntu with the window control buttons moved to the mac side of the window, Mint appears to have all the features of Ubuntu but with a few extras and the window control buttons in the right place. Thanks for all the help!
 
Granny's going to be angry at you when she tries to install that new bingo program that her friend emailed her. Other than that, she should get along just fine.

Mint is a little less techy-looking, and more visually appealing, but it's basically Ubuntu from what I understand. I really like the default look of Mint. Try it.
 
I installed Ubuntu for a *severely* computer illiterate friend of the family; she actually found it much simpler than Windows - all I had to do was guide her through what the alternative programs are (OpenOffice instead of the M$ Office series, signing into pidgin once instead of the individual IM clients separately, that sorta thing).
 
I'm running Mint 9 on my laptop right now. Pretty easy to get used to (however, I had used Ubuntu previously so not really a Mint Virgin) and even my 8 year old nephew jumped on and found his Star Wars site. (Then again, he's used both Windows and OS X, so it might not be a good example)
 
I just installed Ubuntu on my PC last week. Its my first Linux OS since all i have ever run is windows. For a first time user I was impressed with how easy it was to setup and use and I have had no problems with it so far. its very user friendly from what I have seen and for your basic email, web surfing and such, i think it would be easy for your mother in law to use.
 
Binky said:
Granny's going to be angry at you when she tries to install that new bingo program that her friend emailed her. Other than that, she should get along just fine.

Mint is a little less techy-looking, and more visually appealing, but it's basically Ubuntu from what I understand. I really like the default look of Mint. Try it.
Click to expand...

Granny's grandchildren will also be mad when they can't download and install their adware laden file sharing and IM software when they come to visit.

That's probably a good thing, though 🙂
 
I tried Ubuntu 9.6 (?) on my parents' computer. They were just slightly too sophisticated for it. (Emailing attachments that really didn't work well on OpenOffice, mostly). Otherwise, they were ok with it. If they really are computer newbies, I think that you'll be ok.

Also, I'll second ultimatebob's point about it being difficult for other users to screw up!
 
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