I just set up a new system for mother. She never really took to computing before, probably because her former place of employment provided Macro$uck systems only. After retiring, she lost touch via E-Mail with friends and former colleagues.
I "won" an old Dell Dimension XPS M166s, from 1996 in an office raffle. When I got it, it still had Win 95, and a "Designed for Microsoft Windows 95" decal on it. Here are the specs:
- CPU: Pentium (113MHz)
- Video Card: Virge S3 (by STB Systems -- long out of business)
Video RAM: 2.0MB
- RAM: 64MB
- "C": 2.0GB
- "E": 1.5GB
No sooner did I try to boot up after getting it home, than I got a BSOD. So I ditched Win 95 and installed Slackware 9.0. I put the root, swap, and home parts on the 2.0GB HD (now hda) and /usr on the 1.5GB hdb. That's when mother decided she wanted it for herself. So I got a hardware modem and set it up for her. "But I miss Windows", she says. I pointed out that KDE provides the same functionality, and looks better as well. I asked if she missed the BSODs (Slack has a BSOD screensaver) and lost work, or having to do AV updates (she didn't know what that was, as the former employer's IT dept. took care of doing those) or having hard-to-use, nearly incomprehensible, help files (showing her how to access man pages, and the "apropos" command -- something WinDoesn't never had) or having to worry about strange E-Mails and peculiar attachments (pointing out that I had a copy of Win32-Magistr land in my in-box just a few days ago); did she
really miss WinSux?
Anyway, after some preliminary command line lessons, she did her first 'Net logon from a Linux rig. Pleasently surprised at how closely Mozilla resembled Netscape, which she'd used before, she had no troubles navigating to her E-Mail account to reactivate it as it had gone dormant due to no useage in four months. I also gave her the
Mandrake Linux Reference Guide that contains a good explanation of the command line. This is an
excellent reference for the rank n00b.
Needless to say, it's beginning to dawn on her that Winderz and computers are not one and the same. Also, that old computer phobia of hers is finally being lifted, and she's seeing that computers can be a source of fun instead of aggravation. :eek:
Can WinBlows make that same claim?
Could Win XP even
run on that old Dell?
I betcha she'll be posting here regularly in a few days. :D
_______________________________________
Live Free or Die: Linux
"There: now you'll never have to look at those dirty Windows anymore"
--Daffy Duck
[ July 30, 2003: Message edited by: jtpenrod ]
