Steve Scrimpshire Posted February 26, 2003 Report Share Posted February 26, 2003 My fiancee is kinda techie-minded, but she also has this side of her that if it appears too foreboding, she won't even try. She could do algebra all day until you told her she was doing algebra, then she would choke. She has a Dell with Win98SE on it, an 8 gig HD, and now 256 MB of RAM (thanks to me....she did have just 64 megs) I believe her processor is a 600MHZ...not sure. Her Win installation is so fubar that even with the 256 MB stick in her puter, clicking Explorer on the taskbar takes about a minute for it to actually show up (no exagerration). I've already switched my computer over to Gnome, because I think that makes it 'prettier' for her than KDE (even though KDE has that drag-n-drop functionality for the desktop like windows, because I think she values 'pretty' better than functional...lol). I also created a user for her with a line in her bash profile that starts X on tty10 automatically as soon as she logs in (and I try to log her in when I have to reboot). I told her that her desktop is Ctrl-Alt-F10 and if she goes there and sees no desktop, to go to Ctrl-Alt-F3 and log in and she said 'That's too confusing...write it down'....LOL. Now, she is *not* UNintelligent....but I think she has that old-fashioned 'pretend to be dumb cuz yer a woman and guys like that' mentality ingrained in her so much she doesn't even realize she does it. Anyway, even in Windows, my Gateway puter (750 MHz...384MB RAM) is tons faster and more stable than hers (maybe because I reinstall windows once a month...lol). It was even faster than hers when mine had 64 MB RAM and hers had the 256 MB. Anyway...anyone know any tricks to lure her? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted February 26, 2003 Report Share Posted February 26, 2003 the only thing my wife missed was Office. so codeweavers, and $30 bucks later she now has KDE / Evolution / Mozilla / and MS Office :-) .... she's happy We were running all manner of Windows OSes on here puter ... all illegal, so I put my foot down, and said NO MORE ILLEGAL SOFTWARE. When she saw the price of Windows (NZD $889.00) she thought USD $60 for Mandrake DVD sounded pretty good 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted February 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2003 Well, my opinion of illegal software has nothing at all to do with it. I think once she gets into Linux, there will be no stopping her. I think the coding atmosphere, stability, etc will hook her once she gets past "Where's 'My Computer' and 'My Documents'????" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted February 26, 2003 Report Share Posted February 26, 2003 MIne was easy to get hooked on linux. She just sat down in front of my linux computer and had to learn. Didn't have a dualboot or vmware installed at the time. I just had to spend some time with her and show her the linux equilivants such as OpenOffice, the default directory it stores files etc. She got so hoked that she wants linux on her laptop now. Too bad it's so old and the ram is allready maxed out in it otherwise I'd install it for her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyv Posted February 26, 2003 Report Share Posted February 26, 2003 Well, my opinion of illegal software has nothing at all to do with it. I think once she gets into Linux, there will be no stopping her. I think the coding atmosphere, stability, etc will hook her once she gets past "Where's 'My Computer' and 'My Documents'????" ummm rename home icon to my computer rename documents to my documents and change the icons if you want but does she even need to know anything beyond that her c: is home/username? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Just show her Frozen Bubble and it will all be over for Wild Bill and his Pane (Pain?!?!) of software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamCat Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 I will probably set up my wife's Mandrake to mimic XP as closely as possible. I'll be purchasing Codeweavers' Crossover Office and the browser plug in. She'll have her MS Office, ICQ, MSN chat thingy and all the various multimedia plugins and such. My wife is not interested in learning Linux. She just wants a stable computer that she is comfortable using. And i'm sick of dealing with her Win98SE box. :lol: The damn thing has to go! My Win98SE lisence will live on a separate computer loaded with the plethora of kids activities that have collected over the years. Since she uses XP at work making Mandrake look and act like it (except for the part about XP sucking) will make her happy. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest duir66 Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 ummm rename home icon to my computerrename documents to my documents and change the icons if you want but does she even need to know anything beyond that her c: is home/username? Yeah, find some windows like themes to go with it. If not, there is always Lycoris - plain old XP rip-off. Right down to the background pic. If not that there is always RH8 w/Bluecurve. It's gnome with xp lipstick, IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 In gnome, it will not allow me to change the name of her Home desktop icon to My Computer or anything for that matter. Tried as root even. If I go into a shell and go to ~/.gnome-desktop and run ls, I see it as My Computer, but it remains laluna's Home on the desktop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 In gnome, it will not allow me to change the name of her Home desktop icon to My Computer or anything for that matter. Tried as root even. If I go into a shell and go to ~/.gnome-desktop and run ls, I see it as My Computer, but it remains laluna's Home on the desktop. have you tried editing the *My Computer* file and changing the Name ??? paul@trinity paul $ cat ~/.gnome-desktop/paul's Home [Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Encoding=UTF-8 Name=paul's Home Type=X-nautilus-home URL=file:///home/paul X-Nautilus-Icon=gnome-fs-home paul@trinity paul $ change "Name=paul's Home" to "Name=My Computer" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Just show her Frozen Bubble and it will all be over for Wild Bill and his Pane (Pain?!?!) of software. That would be nice, but: [root@omar tmp]# urpmi --auto-select frozen-bubble-0.9.3-6mdk.i586.rpm To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be installed (592 MB): libaspell10-0.33.7.1-1.1mdk slocate-2.7-1.1mdk openssh-clients-3.4p1-1.1mdk ghostscript-6.51-24.1mdk apache-modules-1.3.22-10.2mdk printer-testpages-1.0-15.1mdk HTML-Embperl-1.3.22_1.3.4-4.1mdk vnc-server-3.3.3r2-9.3mdk zlib1-devel-1.1.3-16.1mdk alsa-lib-0.5.10-2mdk gnupg-1.0.6-3.1mdk pam-doc-0.75-25.1mdk openssl-0.9.6i-1.2mdk samba-common-2.2.2-3.3mdk libgcj-2.96-4.1mdk tetex-1.0.7-31.2mdk kernel22-2.2.20-9.2mdk shadow-utils-20000902-2.1mdk gcc-java-2.96-0.63.1mdk libmirrordirz1-0.10.49-4.1mdk mozilla-0.9.4-4.1mdk libsnmp0-4.2.3-1.1mdk printer-utils-1.0-15.1mdk samba-2.2.2-3.3mdk tkinter-2.2-9.1mdk mod_php-4.0.6-7.1mdk libgcj-devel-2.96-4.1mdk kernel-doc-2.4.18-8.2mdk ldconfig-2.2.4-11.1mdk cups-common-1.1.18-1.4mdk passwd-0.64.1-9.1mdk glibc-2.2.4-11.1mdk libpng2-devel-1.0.12-2.2mdk aspell-0.33.7.1-1.1mdk MySQL-3.23.41-5.3mdk proftpd-1.2.5-0.rc1.1mdk dhcp-server-3.0-0.rc12.2.2mdk initscripts-6.27-10.4mdk libgtop1-1.0.12-4.1mdk php-4.0.6-6.1mdk enscript-1.6.1-22.1mdk tetex-dvips-1.0.7-31.2mdk mdkonline-0.18-1.2mdk mod_perl-common-1.3.22_1.26-4.1mdk libstdc++2.10-devel-2.96-0.63.1mdk libcups1-1.1.18-1.4mdk apache-mod_perl-1.3.22_1.26-4.1mdk php-ldap-4.0.6-3.1mdk vim-X11-6.1-34.1mdk vim-enhanced-6.1-34.1mdk bind-utils-9.2.1-2.2mdk vim-minimal-6.1-34.1mdk dhcp-common-3.0-0.rc12.2.2mdk kernel-source-2.4.18-8.2mdk aspell-en_GB-0.33.7.1-1.1mdk gcc3.0-3.0.1-1.1mdk pam-0.75-25.1mdk flex-2.5.4a-17.1mdk webmin-0.970-2.3mdk util-linux-2.11h-3.5mdk fetchmail-6.1.0-1.1mdk libstdc++2.10-2.96-0.63.1mdk sudo-1.6.4-3.1mdk libpng2-1.0.12-2.2mdk gcc-c++-2.96-0.63.1mdk gcc-objc-2.96-0.63.1mdk mirrordir-0.10.49-4.1mdk libpspell4-0.12.2-2.1mdk libldap2-2.0.21-2.1mdk libsasl7-1.5.27-2.1mdk cvs-1.11.4-2.2mdk libopenssl0-0.9.6i-1.2mdk libogg0-1.0-0.rc2.1mdk apache-1.3.22-10.2mdk libvorbis0-1.0-0.rc2.2mdk imlib-1.9.13-2.2mdk libimlib1-1.9.13-2.2mdk openldap-2.0.21-2.1mdk ppp-2.4.1-2.1mdk libSDL_image1.2-1.2.0-2mdk postgresql-7.1.2-19.3mdk rsync-2.5.4-1.1mdk libimlib1-devel-1.9.13-2.2mdk samba-client-2.2.2-3.3mdk imap-2000c-7.1mdk MySQL-shared-3.23.41-5.3mdk cups-1.1.18-1.4mdk gcc-2.96-0.63.1mdk gcc-cpp-2.96-0.63.1mdk ghostscript-module-X-6.51-24.1mdk gcc3.0-cpp-3.0.1-1.1mdk mod_ssl-2.8.5-3.2mdk postgresql-libs-7.1.2-19.3mdk cups-drivers-1.1-15.1mdk mozilla-mail-0.9.4-4.1mdk libmm1-1.1.3-9.1mdk foomatic-1.1-0.20010923.1mdk groff-1.17.2-3.3mdk python-docs-2.2-9.1mdk libSDL1.2-1.2.2-1mdk gcc-g77-2.96-0.63.1mdk wget-1.8.2-3.1mdk gcc3.0-g77-3.0.1-1.1mdk tetex-latex-1.0.7-31.2mdk openssh-3.4p1-1.1mdk rpmtools-4.2-8.1mdk apache-manual-1.3.22-10.2mdk perl-libwww-perl-5.63-2.1mdk apache-suexec-1.3.22-1.1mdk tcl-8.3.3-21.3mdk gzip-1.2.4a-9.1mdk perl-MailTools-1.47-1.1mdk glibc-devel-2.2.4-11.1mdk tk-8.3.3-21.3mdk php-common-4.0.6-6.1mdk groff-for-man-1.17.2-3.3mdk printer-filters-1.0-15.1mdk openssh-server-3.4p1-1.1mdk krb5-libs-1.2.2-17.4mdk perl-URPM-0.70-10_81.1mdk urpmi-4.0-20_81.3mdk zlib1-1.1.3-16.1mdk tar-1.13.25-6.2mdk mkinitrd-3.1.6-28.1mdk tetex-afm-1.0.7-31.2mdk mozilla-irc-0.9.4-4.1mdk procmail-3.22-1.1mdk sharutils-4.2.1-8.1mdk libSDL_mixer1.2-1.2.0-3mdk frozen-bubble-0.9.3-6mdk libgcc3.0-3.0.1-1.1mdk ftp-client-krb5-1.2.2-17.4mdk apache-common-1.3.22-10.2mdk perl-Crypt-SSLeay-0.37-1.1mdk xchat-1.8.9-1.1mdk libgimpprint1-4.1.99-16.1mdk libsmpeg0.4-0.4.4-3mdk libpython2.2-2.2-9.1mdk tix-8.3.3-21.3mdk gurpmi-4.0-20_81.3mdk at-3.1.8-4.1mdk perl-SDL-1.08-3mdk squid-2.4.STABLE7-1.1mdk unzip-5.50-2.1mdk locales-2.3.1.2-5.1mdk vim-common-6.1-34.1mdk MySQL-client-3.23.41-5.3mdk lynx-2.8.5-0.10mdk.dev.8 perl-Locale-gettext-1.01-6.2mdk gaim-0.59.1-1.1mdk python-2.2-9.1mdk python-base-2.2-9.1mdk xpdf-1.01-4.1mdk gv-3.5.8-27.1mdk fileutils-4.1-4.1mdk tetex-xdvi-1.0.7-31.2mdk dhcpcd-1.3.22pl4-1.1mdk libdiffie1-0.10.49-4.1mdk apache-conf-1.3.22-1.1mdk Is it ok? (Y/n) And I'm on dialup. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 have you tried editing the *My Computer* file and changing the Name ??? Well, DUH. That did the trick. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 even us old timers forget about the simple solutions, sometimes :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cid Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Space in filenames are bad bad bad :) Linux seems to handle them much better than my UNIX box, but still.. Would she be upset if instead of: My Documents she had: MyDocuments ??? Xandros put spaces in and has My DOcuments, My Music, etc. It ticked myoff. Messed up some of my scripting. MyDocuments works just fine, my wife doesn't notice the difference of the missing space, but is familiar with what it means. D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 You can always get around the problem of spaces by using quotes when referencing filenames or by using the wildcards. It's never given me a lick of trouble,... really. But I understand that to the old-time Unix guys spaces in filenames are bad form... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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