Give Granny a Linux system
Some of you remember how an 82 year old friend got a virus and sent out lots of e-mail in my name and address. It still rankles me, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I see so many compromised machines doing so much mischief, and their owners are clueless about how to stop it.
Soo….
How about you give Granny a Linux system?
With a Linux system, she’ll be spared the typical Microsoft vulnerabilities. Less chance of being infected!
Of course, it may not be your grandmother. It could be your father, mother, grandfather, uncle, sister, the neighbor next door.
But for those users who are less likely to use bleeding edge technology, chances are a userfriendly linux system would run on their (maybe aging) computer. If all Granny needs is Mozilla/Firefox (instead of Internet Explorer), Thunderbird (instead of Outlook Express) and Open Office (instead of Microsoft Office - yes, Word looks almost completely the same as the Open Office version, and documents are compatible), then she could use one of those Linux distributions geared towards less clueful users.
Examples are:
*Skolelinux. Install as standalone. It works on ancient computers! (the network card on my current test system didn’t seem to like it - update: I had two network cards, and didn’t notice the first one, that’s why I had troubles. But an older machine liked it just fine - on just 64 megabyte RAM!). I’ve also seen other Debian based systems on meager machines (think 500 to 600 MHz processors).
*Ubuntu. Won’t run on systems with under 256 megabyte RAM, and will run sluggishly on older systems.
*Mepis. The current darling. Also prefers 256 megabyte RAM, but will run on older systems. Especially SimplyMepis.
Those distributions are complete systems, with stuff built in from the get go. And install is userfriendly, especially for linux. Well, barring hardware conflicts. But try another distribution if it bombs. Knoppix doesn’t run on my test system. Seems to be the graphics card…
I did install Ubuntu on a 400 MHz 256 RAM system that I loaned to a friend…
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Update: I couldn’t get the network card to work with many distros on my test system. Only Damn Small Linux worked out of the box (but with appalling colors. Looked like about 16 or 256 colors?). In SimplyMepis I had easy access to the network settings, and decided to try eth1. Turns out I had two network cards, but had only noticed eth1…. I ended up connecting the cable to eth0, and no more problems, though I initially toyed with setting up eth1 instead. I never found a GUI for network configuration in Skolelinux, though it’s easy enough to set up using command line. I just never thought to try eth1 in there. Still, SimplyMepis is easier for those coming from Windows.
For those of us who will look around foir the best bootable Linux for the person we’re giving it to, a good resource is:
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
Personally, if Granny has a computer with decent hardware, I like PCLinuxOS… If not, then I’d go for Damn Small Linux.
I have not used Ubuntu since the Hoary Hedgehog release or whatever it’s called. The fact that it uses a Gnome desktop, which looks professional, has application design standards, and generally hides away all the crazy options that KDE has is really nice for a beginner. Unfortunately, Ubuntu did not “just work” when I tried it on a couple systems.
Mepis, on the other hand, was probably the single greatest, simplest OS I’ve used other than Mac OS X. You can install easily off a live CD and it’s condensed into the best apps of each genre as opposed to 14 options for instant messaging and 8 office alternatives. Not to mention, I have yet to meet a hardware device that’s a problem for SimplyMepis’s fairly complete set of drivers.