[plug] A new convert (maybe)

[Sol]

I'll second Shayne on this one. Setting automount for cds and floppies is very 
important. Most dozers don't use much apart from Outlook, IE, and MSOffice 
which is taken care of by top knotch OSS apps these days. But find out (or 
guess) what your dozers want and try to cover those bases. An explanation of 
the filesystem layout is important. 
IMO though, it's most important to not raise expectations impossibly high. 
Tell the 'doze refugees that the OSS/Linux world is very different; that it 
will take some time for them to get comfortable with it; that it's worth the 
effort of becoming familiar with the new environment because of increased 
stability, security, etc; that they might become computer literate ;-)

Good luck and may the source be with you,
sol

On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 07:52 am, Shayne wrote:
> Off the top of my head, the main thing that gets newbies at first is
> mounting and unmounting floppies and cds, and the fact that there is only
> one file tree. It's pretty easy to get the hang of....
>
> Oh yeah.... Learn the trick of how to use kde's printer dialog in non kde
> appps, it's real easy, and your boss'll LOVE the bit about printing to a
> pdf from anything.
>
> Um, Can I suggest if your life depends on this working, get your hands on a
> copy of knoppix and play with that first. It runs totally of a CD and might
> save your neck if it pans out that.
>
> Oh yeah. I think the 'crossover office' plugin will let you run office if
> you need office, but openoffice works a treat
>
> Wine can work quite well, but it can be a totally bizare thing trying to
> find the right combination of settings to get it to run perfectly. I've had
> no luck with photoshop, but illustrator & pagemaker works a treat. (Having
> a copy of windows installed someware on drive really helps for supplying
> dlls to wine)
>
> > 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.