automaticable

I’ve been home with the family for a couple weeks for the holiday season now. I took a break from sitting by the fire and enjoying stories of Christmas-past, to set my brothers with Ubuntu. One of them just bought a new desktop, and was willing to give it a shot on his aging laptop, and the other wanted to setup a dual-boot, to test the Linux waters before making the switch.

Needless to say, I’m now on constant call for tech-support. Neither of them have any Linux experience, but they’re pretty tech-oriented anyway. It’ll be a good learning experience for all of us. In fact, I’ve already picked up a few pointers to share:

• Don’t assume that cool desktop effects are going to work on your old hardware. The new compiz is cool, but old cards just can’t hack it. For some Nvidia cards, it’ll require using the proprietary video driver, which is a whole new can of worms.
• Use local repository mirrors. Just like a fresh Windows install, expect about 100 updates after you’ve got things installed. You can cut the download time in half by finding a mirror in your area.
• Discourage sudo. Coming from Windows, there is an expectation that you should have access to everything. In Linux, there’s restrictions there for a reason. Instil a fear of root access, as a means to save the new user from himself. And when you must go editing system files, make backups.
• Show off the terminal. This may sounds contradicting to the last point, but Linux is built around the command-line. While your setting things up through the GUI, make sure to mention the alternatives. If they’re going to use Linux, they’re going to have to dabble in the terminal eventually.
• Teach them to search. Starting off, they’re obviously going to have questions, and more than you’ll probably have time to answer. Show them the wonders of Google. There’s even a search engine, Uboontu, that’s tailored exactly for Ubuntu and Linux questions.
• Setup remote access. Just because the relatives are leaving and the holidays are ending, doesn’t mean that the computer trouble will. Make sure you have an adminstrator account setup, as well as ssh and vnc access. This means setting up the server, and opening ports on the router.
• Talk it up. Finally, you need to convince them that they made the right move going to Linux. Ubuntu takes some getting used to, so make them feel they’ve made a worthy investment by bragging about it a little bit. Talk about how easy it is to install software, how everything is free and legal, and that they won’t get viruses. Make them like it.