[TriLUG] Deploying Linux to...Aunt Marge

[Cristobal Palmer]

If you _have_ an old Mac you can pass on, that's great, but otherwise
you're looking at buying a Mac new or buying a mac used, in which case
you still have to have the tech savvy to troubleshoot aging hardware.

If your budget allows (mine doesn't) and you simply cannot spare the
time to thow together a linux box (I can), a new Mac is a fantastic
option, BUT it's neither free as in beer nor free as in freedom. It's
better than having them use one of those systems from Redmond, but at
what cost?

I would love to get my hands on a MacBook Pro in the same way I'd love
to get my hands on a Ferrari, but in both cases I feel I can make a
compelling argument for something else.

Linux is free, the hardware is cheap, and with Ubuntu the learning
curve for the user is relatively easy. I think deploying Ubuntu to
"Aunt Marge" works. I don't think I could justify buying Aunt Marge a
new Mac, even if I could afford it.

Again, used hardware is another argument. Gimme your old iBooks :)

-CMP

On 2/27/06, Greg Brown <gwbrown1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll tell you what I did for my non-technical parents and sister - migrated
> them to OS X and let them be.  Both my sister and my parents have been
> burned by out-of-date or non-existent anti-virus, lost data, etc, etc, etc,
> standard stuff really when using Microsoft operating systems in conjunction
> with high-speed Internet.
>
> I gave my parents my old G3 iBook when I got a G4 iBook for my wife.  Why
> give my parents a computer?  Simple - I got tired of spending my time on the
> phone trying to diagnose "computer slowness" or any other one of a million
> technical problems that exists on Windows on a machine in Arizona.  So,
> while I could have got $X for selling the laptop on eBay I calculated that I
> was at least 99.89% probable to spend $X + $1 in my time if they remained on
> Windows doing tech support.  So giving them the computer was worth it.  And
> being free, they couldn't really turn it down.
>
> Yes, there were some technical hurdles to overcome with switching but the
> number of tech calls has decreased dramatically.  My sister got an older
> iMac (the ones that look like eMacs) so she could do iChat with my parents
> and now she is talking about upgrading to a new iMac.
>
> As they sang in South Park so many years go.. Happy happy happy, everyone is
> happy.  And happy relatives on a better platform makes for a happier IT guy
> at home.
>
> I think there will be a time when Ubuntu gets to the point that I could have
> set up my non-techie parents and sister on that platform, but it's just not
> there yet.  Close, and getting closer, but not yet.  If they lived closer to
> me instead of 1000 and 2000 miles away perhaps I could have set them up and
> got them running with the occasional house call but that wasn't an option.
>
> Greg
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--

Cristobal M. Palmer
UNC-CH SILS Student
cristobalpalmer at gmail.com
cmpalmer at ils.unc.edu
ils.unc.edu/~cmpalmer
"Television-free since 2003"