My last upgrade to 11.04 – has brought my acer netbook to a grinding halt. Literally, waiting minutes for it to load or process – painful! A fellow UVLC member heard of my pain and said why don’t you try Lubuntu 11.10 – it just might just do the trick. No harm in trying… in it went next to 11.04 – just in case…fingers crossed…
Three weeks later, I’m just lovin’ it! Yes it’s bare bones – no flashy unity or graphics but I’m more than willing to give all that up for speed.
The one thing that I don’t particulary like is the ‘lack there of’ – Software Centre. I don’t come from the days of synaptic package manager and so its quite foreign and more difficult for me. I guess I’ll get use to it but I do really like the simplicity and clean design of the software centre.
Whenever, I’m using software, I’m always thinking of my friends and family – Would they like this? Would it be easy for them? What things will they dislike? Is anything especially ‘annoying’? But of all the questions, the #1 thing they all want is that the software is reliable and consistent. When they turn their computer on, it does what its suppose to do time and time again without fail. In some ways, its kind of paradox that the first thing they say to me is that they’ll only try Ubuntu (or varying flavours) if its reilable and consistent when they currently live with Windows which couldn’t deliver less reliablility and consistency. It’s the familarity and ‘comfort’ of Windows – knowing that its only going to give them ‘X’ but at least they know they are going to get that. Trying to convince them otherwise is honestly a futile, tireless, waste of my energy. Now, I look for the ‘right people’ the ones that are:
- Teetering on the edge as their patience with their Windows system draws ever thinner
- Asking the question: Can I have something that is better than what I have now?
- Open and ready to learn about an alternative
Even if the person meets these 3 key criteria there is still a huge amount of fear and hesitation. It’s only natural – change is a scary place for people.
Now the next question is how do we take them from a scary place to a comfy place?
