In the previous article, our computer newbie family, Mike, Diane, Mary and Carla, had decided they wanted GNU/Linux installed on the new family/business computer. Debian, via Libranet 2.0, was installed on the system, with appropriate business/office software, as well as the Gnome desktop environment. The next steps involved getting the system configured for easy use and adding various minor tweaks. Mike, Diane and the kids were not involved during the configuration phase of the system.
The kernel was rebuilt with a couple of patches, to provide a smoother and quicker desktop experience. Then the sound, printer, and Nvidia drivers were set up and installed. Additionally, the squid caching web proxy was installed and set up to block Internet ads. It seems that Mike and Diane were quite sick of the Internet ads which had appeared while they were surfing the Internet on the WebTV. Squid was installed to solve this problem. I then created three new user accounts, all with the same password, so that she could later change the passwords herself. I did minimal setup on these user accounts, hoping that she would opt to do them herself later, which would help familiarize her with how the Gnome desktop worked. The computer was now set up with a pre-loaded operating system, as far as Mike and Diane were concerned.
Mike had just returned home from work as the system configuration was completed. He had not seen the computer in operation yet and wished to see it. The Mozilla web browser was opened, and each of the ten links on the Mozilla toolbar was hit in quick succession. His jaw hit the floor as the pages appeared almost instantaneously, thanks to the squid proxy and the cable modem.
It was then that Mike asked me about an email problem he had previously, while using WebTV. Mike daily received large amounts of spam in his email, using WebTV. He wished to know if there was anything he could do to control it using Debian. I told him he could bounce (roughly translated as returning the spam to the sender with his address marked as non-existent) the spam, or he could filter it directly to the trash, depending on which email program he wished to use. (All mail servers had been removed from this system.) He seemed very interested in being able to bounce, or ‘return to sender address unknown,’ any spam he might receive. I did not explain to him what email headers were, but did tell him, bouncing email will not always work, if the spam is sent from a fake email address. He still wanted this ability. I knew then that Kmail would be installed on the system, along with KDE, since Kmail has had the ability to bounce email, at least since version 2.0. Mike was satisfied and went into the house as I returned home.
I met Diane after dinner that night, as we had previously planned. I brought up the QuickBooks topic, which she had mentioned again the previous evening. I reminded her of all the points we had gone over several times before:
1. Windows and Linux are two different systems.
2. Windows programs will not run on Linux in many, if not most, cases. (WINE excepted)
3. Windows software dominates in business in this country and some others.
4.You can walk into any store and buy a new program to run on Windows, but you can not do that for Linux yet.
5.Debian has thousands of programs available, all of which are free in both ways.
I reminded her that if she needed QuickBooks, she would need to install Windows first. I also reminded her that there was room on the hard drive for Microsoft Windows to be installed if she wanted. I had noticed that the few times she had mentioned Quickbooks up to this point, she ALWAYS, in the same breath, mentioned check printing. I told there was a Linux program that would print checks, named MoneyDance, which could be purchased for $29.99. Diane had checked the price of QuickBooks, and as it turns out, MoneyDance was 85% cheaper to purchase, as compared to QuickBooks. I told her not to compare the two programs on price alone, as Quickbooks may well have more features to justify the higher price. She said she would rather stick with Linux. Of course, I had reiterated these facts to her again, more to satisfy my own worries, and was glad I did, as her answer settled my mind for the course she had chosen. I suggested that she decide up front which features she needed, then choose an application with the correct fit. She decided she would later look into MoneyDance.
With that behind us, she sat at the computer and logged into her account. I began showing her some of the basics. She learned where the menu was and that you could use it to launch programs. We covered the Metacity titlebar, as she learned how to close, maximize and minimize windows. She learned that in the Gnome environment, her home folder was actually a file manager named Nautilus. I repeated several times, and had her repeat back to me, ‘a folder is a directory and a directory is a folder’, while viewing the Nautilus file manager. I hoped this short game of word association might stick and come in handy later. At this point, perhaps out of utter boredom, she asked me,
‘Where is GnuCash?’
I asked her if she would first like to have a GnuCash icon on her desktop and she said yes. She learned how to click and hold the Gnome menu icon, then drag it to the desktop and have an icon. She then clicked the new icon and opened GnuCash. The GnuCash wizard appeared, offering to set up a default set of books for her. She read over the choices and selected the default set of business accounts. She did not know how to expand the Income or Expenses list. I guessed where to click and the full list of possible entries appeared.
She said, ‘Oh this is exactly like the books I have been keeping by hand, but then accounting is accounting.’
She asked how to make an entry. I told her I didn’t know as I had never used the program. I guessed if she either clicked or double-clicked on one of the account entries, she would probably be able to enter dollar amounts. She clicked and the fields appeared. She then wanted to know if there was a manual of instruction for GnuCash. (I kid you not. This newbie wanted to RTFM!) Now previous to this, roughly three days before, I had seen GnuCash documentation listed in Synaptic, one of the Debian package managers. I had installed GnuCash, along with the manual, on one of my own machines, running Unstable, to see what the documentation was like. I already knew that at that time, in Unstable, if you clicked on the help file, GnuCash would promptly shutdown and close, without ever having shown the help files. I told Diane this and asked her if she remembered what I had told her about Unstable? Luckily she remembered. I told her it was just a guess, but I bet she could instead find the manual somewhere on the Internet.
She said:
‘OK, I was going to ask you that anyway. How do I find things on the Internet?’
I walked her through the Gnome menu as she guided the mouse to the Mozilla entry, and also pointed out the icon on her desktop. Before she would open Mozilla though, she made it a point to make sure the GnuCash window was closed, which I found rather odd. She then opened Mozilla and I explained what a search engine was. The bookmarks I had copied into all user accounts had Google on the toolbar, but she didn’t know what a toolbar was, much less that it could contain links. She guided her mouse to the Google link on the toolbar with a little prompting and the search page opened. I told her she might want to search on ‘GnuCash home’ which she typed. I instructed her to press the enter key. The GnuCash home page appeared as the first search result, which she then clicked. She was promptly whisked to the GnuCash home page. On that page, in huge bold letters on the left hand side, was the word ‘Documentation.’ The second link under it was for the manual. She had found the fine manual! Next, she wanted to know if she could save it for future reference. So her very first bookmark ended up being the GnuCash manual.
I wondered if now would be a good time for her to learn a new Linux trick and asked her if she wanted to see something else. She said yes. I told her where Gedit was on the Gnome menu and asked her to open it. She nervously went and opened it, then asked me,
‘Is it ok to have more than one window open at a time.?’
I said, ‘Huh?’
She asked again, ‘Is it ok to have more than one window open at a time? I have been trying not to have more than one window open at a time tonight.’
I said, ‘What are you talking about?’
She proceeded to spill the beans. It seems her neighbor, who lives on the other side of her house, also has a computer. It turns out, she has watched him use his computer. He has always made it a point to keep no more than a few windows open at once. He closes one window before he will open another. He had actually told her,
“If you have too many windows open at once, bad things will begin to happen on your computer, so it is best not to have too many windows open at once.”
I busted out laughing thinking to myself, “Gee, I wonder what gave him that idea?” I didn’t even bother to ask the most obvious question here. It was one of those that was just too easy & the lack of challenge made it not worth pursuit. I instead told her she really wouldn’t need to worry about how many windows she would have open at any given time on her machine.
She now had Mozilla and Gedit open on the desktop. She had been introduced to click and drag, while making the GnuCash icon on her desktop. I told her she could do the same thing with text to highlight the text. So she highlighted a sentence and a half in Mozilla. (She never did manage to highlight a single sentence complete with a period, as using a mouse is neither intuitive, nor natural, but learned.) I told her to now move the mouse to the Gedit window, and click the middle mouse key, which she did, and her highlighted text was dumped into the editor. She thought this was quite a neat trick and proceeded to highlight all the text in the page, then pasted it into Gedit. She then said,
‘That reminds me, I need a dictionary. Where on the Internet can I find a dictionary?’
Diane likes to have a dictionary handy no matter what she may be writing. I explained to her she already had one and walked her through the Gnome menu again, but this time to the Dictionary. She was pleasantly surprised to find what she needed within such easy reach.
After going through these steps, and a few others that night, she turned and said to me,
‘You know I will be calling you tomorrow, because I won’t remember any of this.’
I told her that was totally unnecessary, that she could just hit me up in chat. We just needed to configure Gaim. So off we went to the AIM website to create her new user name. We finally came up with a user name that was not taken. She learned how to open up the program, and I guided her through adding my user name to her buddy list. I walked her through creating a desktop icon for Gaim. I told her, if I was at home in the evenings, I would usually have Gaim running. If there was something she could not figure out how to do, she could just message me through Gaim and I would walk her through it, and her husband Mike could message me for help as well. I then asked her if she would like to setup Gaim for her daughter, Mary, the 6 year old. All of a sudden, she became very hesitant. Apparently she had heard some stories about what goes on in AOL chat rooms. She absolutely did not want her daughter to be able to enter AOL chat rooms. I told her never fear. Her daughter could not enter the official AOL chat rooms using Gaim. Her daughter could use Gaim to keep up with family members, friends from school and others she may already know, but there is no way to access official AOL chat rooms from Gaim. This eased her mind greatly.
The funny thing is, in earlier days of Gaim history, you could access AOL chat rooms. That functionality was removed many versions back. Ever since then, I had thought of Gaim as a ‘less than’ Linux app, since that functionality had been removed so long ago. Never in a million years did I think, this ‘less-than’ functionality would be seen as a feature by someone else. I guess now, Gaim is the safe, ‘kid-friendly,’ way to message. I guess newbies can teach too.
With that, Diane and I wrapped up her first night in GNU/Linux. I was impressed with her ability to quickly grasp the things she learned. At times she could be quite thorough in the questions she asked. I had no doubts she would eventually end up a capable user. The only remaining question in my mind was, would she be able to handle the system administration?
you should write a book about this…just do it 20more times and you should have enough material to write it 🙂
but as it stands, you could send this to Linux magazine and see if they will pay you for the article.
A very nice article indeed. The thing about not having more than a few windows open at once nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing.
I have to say, while it can sometimes be a pain during the install, Debain and it’s derivatives are a dream to maintain in my experience.
[i}Great, now that Linux has become viable for the unwashed masses, its time to start using a more exotic OS to fulfil my l33t fetishes. FreeBSD, here I come…[/i]
Seriously now, do you really want to run a mainstream OS? Where is the fun in that?
This is like one of those books that come in monthly installments. I can’t wait for the next section. Not quite as exciting as 24, but it’s got me glued nonetheless.
so when is the next part ? dont keep us in suspense it is probably the most enjoyable read in osnews.
And it dispells a lot of the myths about what an average user is capable of doing.
I look forward to the next one already, I find myself hoping Diane will make it through without getting burned. You seem to be a good tutor matey
I looked at the GnuCash manual and wow, that looked really nice with hints and tips and all, really professional! I wish all Linux apps were like that!
I bet that all but the lamest users can learn. Even those who coome from the wonderful world of Windows – IF they WANT to learn. Most articles about migration I have read here are rants about how the author has to learn new stuff. Most of the times, we are just lazy…
Love the article. I hope for them that all goes well. The fact that she asked for the manual…huge plus. Means she’s willing to learn, very good quality.
..is the fact that the machine’s running Debian Sid. I thought Sid wasn’t recommended for newbies.
Other than that, the article is a joy to read, and it brings smiles to my face whenver I look at it.
Keep up the good work, please!
>> nisse buttwrites…
>> I find myself hoping Diane will make it through without getting burned
LOL it sounds like a Soap Opera.
But seriously it is a good article and reinforces the fact people can use linux to be as productive as they need to be.
But it also reinforces my claims and others that Linux can be complicated to configure, eg. You set the system up for them.
It is the same with Uni, the admins set up the Sun labs, and we simply use the software provided.
She asked for a manual which is good.
Then again us Windows “no it all” switchers never ask for a manual because we think just because we have learned a certain platform, that every other platform should behave the same.
You start with “The kernel was rebuilt with a couple of patches, to provide a smoother and quicker desktop experience”
What patches? (and how did you do it)
Thanks
http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/
While you are obviously a great tutor, until we find out how well the family continues with the distro on their own I feel we won’t really be learning anything from this.
Yes I understand the need that completely newbies do need to have their hands held (especially during installation) and do need to be given a run-through of how to do things, but until we see how well they get on by themselves we won’t know how successful this has been.
I hope there is more to come, so don’t take this as a “bad” comment or anything of the sort, I’m just typing my view.
I am really convinced that learning to user GNU/Linux isn’t more difficult than learning Windows.
Of course, a newbie won’t be able to configure a debian, but most of the distro are really easy to configure now.
To all the people that thinks that GNU/Linux is so difficult : just remember le first time you tried windows…
Of course now it’s obvious for you that changing the background is on the desktop, the configuration of the network is done by a right clik on the network neighborhood… but think about it : do you really think it’s logical? If you don’t know how to do it you’re screwed, you have to look in 10 different place to configure a system. In most distros, the configuration is done in only one place.
As said in an above comment, people think they know things because they know it on Windows, you have to make the effort of learning. For sure it’s not really funny at the beginning when you don’t know how to do anything, but it worth the challenge.
Great article, look forward to the next installment. Can’t wait to see how they do installing software THEMSELVES!!!!
> Great article, look forward to the next installment.
> Can’t wait to see how they do installing software
> THEMSELVES!!!!
Actually that is what I was hoping the article was about, not a “I set up your machine and here it is” kind of thing. It’s easy to try anything new if everything is preconfigured. I started to install debian on my Mac once, when it came up asking how many sectors of my hardrive to allocate to a particular partition I threw it away. There is no reason for any OS today to be that arcane.
I really enjoyed this article just as I did the first.
I look forward to reading the next one. I wonder how many there will be? I hope more than just three. I wouldn’t mind this going for at least a year. It’s much better than reality TV!
>I started to install debian on my Mac once, when it came up >asking how many sectors of my hardrive to allocate to a >particular partition I threw it away. There is no reason for >any OS today to be that arcane.
Partitioning is generally required by the majority of OSes including windows and I assumse MacOS. There is usually a way of specifying sizes in MB instead of sectors, something I know was in the Debian installer when I used it.
Personally I think the article is spot on – if you buy a PC with Windows or a Mac with OSX you don’t have to install the OS yourself. I’ve built machines with windows for people and from the sounds of it this family is asking the same amount if not fewer questions than those newly introduced to windows.
It just goes to show that Linux is definately usable by a newbie
These newbies would’ve been much happier with XP. Why waste time using Linux when XP and even MacOS X are so far ahead? The world would be a better place if Linus had cloned Windows instead Unix… Unix is 30 year old technology.
“The world would be a better place if Linus had cloned Windows instead (of) Unix… Unix is 30 year old technology.”
Let’s through out the wheel and replace it. The wheel is 5,000 year old technology.
Didn’t realise the post was wider than this box – all my >’s are in the wrong place now
You are aware of what windows was like when Linus started his hobby?
It still ran under DOS. It wasn’t an OS in itself.
I’m really not sure how you can claim that Windows is so far ahead either – in what way? Find something you can do in windows that you can’t do in linux…
It would be like saying FreeBSD is way behind – sure it’s not as easy to set up as windows machines – it’s got some stuff windows isn’t gonna have for a while though.
tbh – everything is still playing catchup with BeOS. MicroSoft are loving their new FutureFS! Erm… it’s just a clone of BeFS which has been around for a fair while now
This weekend, I’m switching my father’s Windows XP system to a Mandrake / IceWM system (though I’m also considering Vector)
Windows XP + ANY CREATIVE LABS PRODUCT OR ONBOARD SOUND = THE WORST…..EVER
Windows XP + ANY USB DEVICE = RANDOM REBOOTS/BSODs.
My fricken 486 33SX never had sound crackles and BSODs (on windows 3.1) from a fricken sound card, yet my father can’t get through 1 mp3 without either slow down, crackling, skipping etc (my dad calls it: “It’s like when the motor on a record player [whatever that is] gets warn out.”
Creative labs sucks for drivers, I understand this–but WTF the sound card is an SB16–Hello, legacy drivers??
I’m hoping Linux + Mplayer + Xmms + ICEwm + Mozilla will run smoothly. I’ve already switched him over to OpenOffice on windows–he loves it.
The system it’s going on is an Abit KT7A-Raid with Duron 1GHz, 184MB SDRAM, 30GB drive.
I’ve run ICEwm on a Pentium 233 and it ran quite nicely, while Gnome & KDE ran (crawled is more like it.) I prefer ICEwm anyway, it’s a hell of a lot faster.
I can’t imagine why the hell it’s not included in RedHat or many other distros.
I think we should have a new OS News poll:
Is Charles Williams Porking his neighboor Diane?
a) Definately, he’s showing her some GnuPositions
b) The husband watches the videos
c) Nah, he’s in it for their daughter
d) Never in a million years would a linux fiend be starved for sex. There’s no way he’d do that.
Sounds to me like you’re pushing each others buttons when the husband isn’t around…. *soft bassy music starts to play*
there is nothing wrong with sid. it is as stable as a suse or redhat fianal release…realy it is. unstable is a relative term and in relation to debian, unstable is what a redhat or mandrake or suse system would be.
you get all the latest apps, and 95% of the bugs are worked out by the time it gets into sid….experimental is where it gets hairy.
troll.
debian should rename their package repositories from “unstable” “testing” and “stable” to “good” “better” and “damn-solid” respectively…. seems that too many people think unstable is like a gram of plutonium, ready to blow up or something…
i run of unstable on my desktop, it hasnt’ given me any problems… i dont see unstable any less stable then gentoo’s stable branch. they are both running off of up to date software and such..
as for those optimized kernel patches that the author installed? are those the same patches that some user a few posts ago gave a link to? can’t you jsut recompile the kernel with those options? or are those options not available in the 2.4.20 kernel yet….
This is a good article, and might I add, a good project. But it’s not really a newbies meet linux article, it’s an expert does everything for the newbies article.
I’d do a lot more with linux if I had a guru at my desk a couple hours a day showing me how to do things, informing me of patches that I didn’t know existed, and setting things up for me while I was gone so I didn’t have to do the work.
Linux will remain a hobby OS with regard to home machines as long as
(1) Users can’t walk into Walmart and buy software for it
(2) There is no repository of information which shows the average user how to setup and fix things that are not working , i.e. not having to visit 10 different linux sites to find the answer
(3) There’s more to installation than the initial installation process, i.e. “well you install this first, but then you need this patch and change this config file and …..”
Linux is great. It is improving with every new release of every distro. The community is great. Please keep focusing on improving the OS so that newbies can actually install, use , and maintain the system without the help of experts, then we’ll really be getting somewhere.
If you want to be able to easily get software for Linux, take a page from the Apple playbook and establish a program whereby software titles are burned to CD(s) in the store.
Pick an OS distro, pick a software bundle, wait maybe 10 minutes while you do some other shopping, come back, hand the cashier your credit card, pick up your CD(s) in attractive jewel case(s), and leave.
ROTFL!!!!! That made my day.
This article is not about newbies using Linux. This article is about a Linux guru installing Linux. The newbies barely even touched their new Linux systems. They watched as the Linux guru installed software and updated the kernel.
I would like to hear a progress report six months from now.. written by the two newbies. MoneyDance and GnuCash are cheaper than QuickBooks, but were they adequate? What unexpected problems did they have? Are they still using Linux?
This article is not about newbies using Linux. This article is about a Linux guru installing Linux. The newbies barely even touched their new Linux systems. They watched as the Linux guru installed software and updated the kernel.
The point was to give them a pre-installed OS just like they would get from Dell or HP. The article details how he set up their system so that everyone would know exactly what they were starting out with and all the steps that were taken.
Of course someone has to make assinine comments about someone helping out their neighbor.
I would like to hear a progress report six months from now.. written by the two newbies. MoneyDance and GnuCash are cheaper than QuickBooks, but were they adequate? What unexpected problems did they have? Are they still using Linux?
Well, seeing as how this is a serial article you probably will get more progress reports (though the newbies writing them is doubtful). However, since Charles Williams seems to be their only tech support I’m sure he will write about any problems that were had.
*LOL* Man.. That’s the first time this week that an online post made me literally laugh out loud.. my cat’s staring at me like a weirdo[1].. Nice one, AC!
————————–
[1] Moreso than normal, that is.
Your either brave, or have too much time on your hands. It is taking hours upon hours to get these folks going on Linux, and who is going to be able to do this for very long? The last installment will be: Diane needs to print those damn checks, so she will succumb to QuickBooks and WinXP. Once she’s in an environment that does what she wants, who will want to dual-boot into another one that doesn’t do what she wants. Soon the Win32 version of Gaim will be installed, and it will be all downhill from there.
I found the article rather interesting, but I think the big thing that holds back a lot of people is the install and certain myths about linux. I have a feeling that a lot of people would be confused by even the “user friendly” distro whereas debian! I would be interested to hear the thoughts of some individuals using those lindows based walmart machines. I am told walmart has been selling them for while. Are these people having a good time with their machines? Most tech neophytes don’t have a next door neighbor who they can ask about problems they may enconter. I think the moral of the story is that if preinstalled linux boxes were more common I believe that there would be a lot more newbie’s using linux.
hand the newbie a linux cd and a computer and watch through the one way glass?
in real life you buy a windows or apple computer with the OS already installed and optimized. then if you are a newbie you get training on how to use a computer.
this is what is going on people, not “guru sits down and becomes personal secritary of newbie” which is what you seem to think is going on.
Having attempted, off and on, to install some version of Linux over the past 18 months or so, I finally had an “idea”.
Knowing nothing about computers or Linux I saw a website that was offering businesses Linux services. I phoned them, explained that I was an individual and that I had been trying to install a linux OS,and asked them how much they would charge to install any Linux OS. I said that the install HAD to work; i.e CD burning, internet connection, dvd playing etc.
They said that it might take 1-3 days.
I replid that this , at their rates, would cost a fortune.
They were very pleasant to talk to.
This might seem to be a weird question, but I am also using Kmail and I would like to know how to bounce mail with it. I never knew such a feature existed. Thanks in advance.
“Interested Party” wrote:
…It is taking hours upon hours to get these folks going on Linux, and who is going to be able to do this for very long?
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About two years ago I set up my then 68 year old mother-in-law with an old Pentium and a (legal) copy of Win 95 b. At the time I considered Linux, but rejected the idea because IMHO none of the Linux distros was ready for use by a newbie at that time. Ever since that time, I have essentially been her only tech support.
My mother-in-law is an intelligient lady and enjoys learning new things, but she had never used a computer before this, though she had seen friends and relatives use them. It took more time than I anticipated to teach her the basics – using the menus, connecting to the internet, fetching and reading her email, using a search engine, bookmarks,saving email messages for future use, and keeping all her data within a single folder on a separate partition. I consider this last thing mandatory to permit for relatively painless system upgrades, and I knew it would ease the migration if someday she switched to Linux.
While she was happy to have email and web access, she was constantly stressed over the arrival of the usual reams of computer viruses, email worms, BSOD’s, an other all too familiar parts of the Windows experience. Not having enough technical knowledge to differentiate the annoyances from the serious threats, she stressed out over every one. Updating her anti-virus software was a constant event, and despite this she received adware and spyware, and had her browser hijacked and forced to web sites not of her choice.
I, of course, had to deal with most of this.
When Mandrake 9.1 was released, I decided the time had come to ask her if she would consider switching to Linux. I explained some of the security advantages. She was willing, and about two weeks ago I upgraded her computer and installed Mandrake 9.1. So far she is extremely happy with her new computer; using Kmail instead of Eudora, and Konqueror instead of Internet Explorer, is not much of a challenge.
I expect more challenges in future – moving from Office 97 to Open Office may be more of a challenge, and cd-burning, scanning, etc, are things she has never done on any OS. But at this point she is able to do everything she currently wants to do on her new Linux box.
My point? It takes time to teach a total computer newbie ANY operating system. Also, it takes me much less time to keep her Linux box running properly than it took to maintain her Windows PC formerly.
-RN
To get good at windows, you need help. Learning the in’s and out’s of an OS takes time. Having good help makes it much easier.
On the other hand, once you get going, learning the ins and outs of Linux, learning what went wrong when it blows up, or tweaking it, is much, much easier than windows.
So…we need user groups. We got ’em. Apparently, some people think we need to have “software in walmart.” I like the quantity and quality of free software that’s available. But when linux grows (and it will and is) we’ll get people selling software for linux. Wait for it. Hopefully it will be great stuff.
We also need support for hardware. I don’t like the idea of binary drivers…but it’s better than no driver at all – and they will come when linux grows too. You can see hardware companies providing drivers and info already.
No, linux isn’t BEOS. It isn’t HURD, it also isn’t perfect. But it is free, and it is open, and it is quite usable and quite stable. It’s got application support, and a growing user base. w00t.
Dear Z_God,
Actually it´s KMail. You wouldn´t like to be called Z_god, would you? So please call KMail by its proper name, KMail.
I have no idea how to bounce mail with KMail, I suppose you´ll have to either read the KMail Handbook, check the source code (Read the Source, Luke – isn´t that hilarious?), or write to the KMail developers.
As a last resort, you could press the right button on your mouse and select the Bounce option, but I am not sure this is what you meant by How to bouce mail in Kmail?.
Ana O´Neemus
Technical Writer
The Garfield Group
Now all we need is for distros like RedHat to bring functionality that is similar to APT to their respecive products. I already use Synaptic <http://psyche.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=1005> for my RH 8.0 box, and find its great for maintaining the packages on my system, both RH supplied and third party applications.
He, David. apt-get already exists for RPM. I’ve used it on RH 7.3 and RH 8.0 systems. RedHat also has their up2date. However, it only works for RPM’s that come from the installation CD or RPM’s that are updates/fixes. apt-get will work for any RPM that exists in one of the apt-for-RPM repositories.
to be honest i tried linux several times but never really had the time to explore much. however it seems you think an OS like windows is a piece of cake, i tell you it can be frustrating as hell at times.
i am the “tech support” for my mother and her aging computer running win2000pro sp3. lately she wanted to see a big .avi file of her wedding a friend salvaged from 8mm. i spent 4 hours including updates to MP9, Divx and what the hell lets throw in a nimo codec pack because i dont know what the problem is any more. btw the file checked ok on my computer (win9x). so what the fuck?
you say thats nothing? got to set up a usb adsl modem for my sister in law. she can handle computers all right. at first the computer was set with winME (anybody say yuck?).
she installed the bugger in no time off the cd. an example of windows ease of use? yea probably. but as the decision was made to switch to winXP it turned out its no go. seemingly every thing would go smooth except the part when you wish to actualy connect. and of course once somthing is installed and didnt come with a bullet proof uninstall the only way to pry the .inf files out is with your teeth. i did notice the the install cd was installing something more that looked like some update. didnt help me though. after installing XP two or three times that night and trying every resource i could find on the web (scattered on many many different sites) i gave up set up winME and in less than an hour was set up to download winXP SP1. yes once i had that i set up XP with SP1 and it all worked fine but for getting this tiny upgrade of ~130MB i had to have the adsl that cant aperantly work without it. A FUCKEN USB DEVICE !!!!. pnp down the drain.
so yes, windows is easy to configure and set up.
I’ve got $10 bucks Diane sees a friend using quickbooks printing checks and they end up with a dual boot into windows, then they discover all the programs windows has that *nix doesn’t and wipe off the linux entirely.
“Having attempted, off and on, to install some version of Linux over the past 18 months or so, I finally had an “idea”…”
You just need a better neighbour.
Ok, several people have suggested that there is something unusual about a newbie relying on a neighbor for tech support or configuration. This is total crap.
There is nothing unusual about it all — it is very common, if not typical. Personally, I am tech support for half a dozen or so friends and relatives. One of these people also relies heavily on her next-door neighbor. Most of these people aren’t newbies at all, they just don’t want to learn any more about computers than they absolutely have to.
Most aren’t even comfortable installing their own application, as easy as running Windows setup usually is. Debian actually has an advantage over Windows in this area, because there are generally fewer, if any, prompts during install.
But Linux is still more challenging for a newbie than Windows. Though, as many of us are well aware, it has improved by leaps and bounds in a short time span. Windows hegemony is very much at risk, regardless of how incredulous many people are on this point.
Linux will really take off when it becomes every bit as intuitive as Windows. When I talk about Linux with newbies, the first thing they generally ask is “what’s the advantage”? Since most of them use pirated copies of Windows, the cheap/free aspect is only marginally attractive. And their interest is immediatly dashed once I fess up that it isn’t as user-friendly. But when I can honestly say it’s every bit as user friendly, many of these conversations will end very differently.
Calvin
Thanks, I found the option. It’s translated as ‘undeliverable…’ in the Dutch version of KMail I’m using. I had already tried searching the handbook for ‘bounce’, but it couldn’t find anything.
Sorry about the name, I won’t do it again 😡
Only a few people say it aloud: piracy is the real reason linux doesn’t gain much ground on home desktop pc’s. Without pirated copies of windows XP, Office, photoshop and Unreal Tournament a lot of home users would be stuck with awful software like windows ME or 98, ms works, wordpad, paint, because they are more willing to pay for that game than for a real productivity suite or photoshop etc. Certainly here in Holland there is a lot of piracy but countries like Russia, China or the phillipines are practically running there entire IT sector on pirated software. Without piracy lots and lots of people would be forced to either get used to linux or invest twice the money they have a budget for, on software. I have no prove, but I this is the truth.
I can’t wait till they start using the console. Then they will see the true power of linux. Its all about stdout/stdin
Well, as I always say,
if we want a better world, we need better people. To make better people, you need activies which will make them better. An OS doesn’t have to be perfect, but it DOES have to encourage you to always learn more.
So, yes, GNU/Linux is good for this! Now, its proven that it is a better system int his sense, and it does encourage users to learn! So, work is ahead of all of us!