[plug] A new convert (maybe)

[Nigel Duff]

Hi all,

My boss suprised me this morning by going out and ordering a new
computer. He then shocked me by saying he wanted me to install Linux on
it[3]. He is a novice[1] user and primarily uses his computer for web
browsing and mail. His wife likes to dabble with Photoshop and wants to
start using "some sort"[2] of sound generation/manipulation program.

I have decided to put on Mandrake 9.0 and use KDE3.

What I need to know is;

What sort of problems do novice users run into when running Linux. I
know it is going to be the little things that will bother him. Things
like is there a "pretty" dialog box showing the ink status for his
printer.

Has anyone used a Canon N1240U with Sane/Gimp? This is the one thing
that worries me. The Sane site shows it as having beta status and poor
picture quality.

It has been a long time since I have used an rpm based distro. Anything
I should look out for with Mandrake/URPMI.

Whats the status of wine like nowadays? They don't play any games and
big apps like OpenOffice.org will do most of what they want to do. I am
just worried that there might be a little application out there that
they will need.

Sorry if this all seems a bit vague. I know they will be better off
running Linux, it is just if something goes wrong and they convert back
to Windows I will never here the end of it. In fact I will probably turn
up to work and he will give me a coffee in a MS mug whilst dressed
in a MS T-shirt.

A list of the system components can be found at;

www.iinet.net.au/~peregrin/newsystem.txt

TIA

Nigel


[1] He has actually been using computers since Win 3.11 but has only
recently started using the right mouse button to copy + paste etc.

[2] Don't ask

[3] He has just come back from 3 months in Europe. While he was away he
had a young lady house sit. She just used his computer for Hotmail and
some web browsing. Last week i had to remove 3 virii, 7 porn dialers,
and 31 instances of spyware from his Win98 computer. Maybe this and my
colourful language about Microsoft and the people who write this crap
helped him come to a decision.