Where should i start? My father asked me the other day to biuld him a computer so he can surf the net and listen to music and what not. I thought, Ok, easily done. Built the computer , installed windows and all the crap that is required for windows. After three days of windows giving me the run around and endless BSOD's i thought to myself, "What kind of moron would ruin a beginners experience with computers by letting them use an unstable, insecure, virus prone and otherwise clumsy OS known as Windows"? Not me. I soon deletd that horrible OS and installed Mandriva '06 - the whole time with a huge grin on my face. 10 minutes of configuration, urpmi'ed a few apps and hey presto!, a fully working and stable OS. This alone makes me fell sooooo much better knowing he is using a free, stable, secure, functioning, easy to learn and well designed OS that i will rarely have to maintain. And finally, are there any tips you can give for teaching an absolute beginner to use computers? It's so frustrating. All he knows right now is to check emails and browse the net. "What's this arrow button do"? he says! Oh my.
first of all, download a typing tutor for him coz that will let him know which key is where and also provide him little bit knowledge of its use.
I've installed VectorLinux 5 on my old Athlon 900 PC with 128mnb of RAM mainly for my mum. Windows would have killed the hardware, but iceWM runsa nicely, even with Firefox which uses a lot of RAM. It's actually a lot easier to let less experienced people use Linux if all they want to do is browse the web, read email and maybe watch a DVD or so. Once its set up its fine for them. It becomes difficult when the person is a teenager or someone who must have "the latest MSN messenger so i can talk 2 my peeps with video conversations n shit".
[ot] I used to run VL5 on an old computer but I found the distribution to be pretty unstable. Besides, I'd rather run Xubuntu with IceWM or WindowMaker for a really old computer[/ot]
Agreed, I added a new repo and did a slapt-get --update and slapt-get --upgrade and broke XFCE. Running mandriva with kde, its just about usable, XFCE isn't suitable for parents cause they're used to a KDE/Windows style interface.
Yeah, i thought it'd be easier too! Running KDE on a P3 800, 360MB RAM and onboard nVidia graphics. Runs great for what he needs.
