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On 24/09/12 19:52, Rob Beard wrote: > I have a positive story. A couple of years ago I tried to get a > friend to use Ubuntu on his desktop dual booting with Vista. He was > one of those "I don't like change" types and wanted to stick with > Vista. He ended up buying a laptop and leaving the desktop with his > parents when he moved out (about 2 years ago now I think). > > Anyway, I had a message from his brother the other day asking me how > to get an Epson printer working on Ubuntu. It turns out they're now > running Ubuntu on their PC, I didn't have any involvement on the > install so I can only assume another friend or family member suggested > it to them. :-) > > Recently I've managed to convert my brother-in-law onto Linux Mint as > his laptop (running Vista) caught a virus. As far as I know he's > happy with Mint as it does what he wants (mainly Internet and Facebook > games). I'm going to be showing Mint to my sister-in-law tomorrow too > as she too has a laptop which is running like a dog. I figured leave > her with a USB stick or DVD with it on so she can have a play and see > how much better it is than Windows :-) > > Hopefully with the launch of the Raspberry Pi it's going to get more > people interested in Linux. I've seen so many comments and heard so > many stories of people picking up Raspberry Pi's and to learn Perl and > Linux, despite being able to do that on a standard PC, so maybe those > people playing with a Pi will maybe look at Linux on a desktop or > laptop PC too (maybe someone should release a version of Debian > renamed to Raspbian for x86 :-D). > > Rob Well, as both Windows 8 and Mac OS 10.8 are doing such a good job of alienating and annoying their paying customers, it's entirely possible that if nothing else, pure desperation might drive a few more users to linux, even if reluctantly. I have multiple clients for whom win8/mac10.8 is proving to be the final straw (nothing wrong with Server 2012 to be fair, but it's hardly a desktop OS for the casual user). Hopefully any of these hypothetical brave users jumping ship won't make the usual mistake and try vanilla ubuntu first though, it's almost as bad. I must say, I didn't really see the current state of affairs coming: the three main current operating system choices (win8, mac 10.8, ubuntu w/unity) are all absolute car crashes. A time traveller from five years ago would have a heart attack if they were sat down in front of these dogs and seriously told it's what passes for the state of the art in 2012... Strange times. Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq