title: Is Linux ready for Dad? link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/is-linux-ready-for-dad/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 570 created: 2008/01/27 16:13:49 created_gmt: 2008/01/27 16:13:49 comment_status: open post_name: is-linux-ready-for-dad status: publish post_type: post

Is Linux ready for Dad?

So, finally, the time has come to think about putting my Dad on Linux.

The old PII Dell he’s had since the stone age and it’s Win 98 O/S are finally becoming almost a daily support headache for his 3 sons.

While we could get him an inexpensive Vista machine from Dell, but I’m just not sure that the additional complexity he’d have to deal with is really justified — especially given that his main applications are web browsing and e-mail.

So I’ve floated the suggestion that maybe it’s time to think about getting him one of the new Dell machines preloaded with Ubuntu. Dell hardware support has been pretty good to me over time, and my wife has been using a CentOS laptop for over 2 years without any complaints.

Of course the real question isn’t whether my Dad is ready for Linux. I think I can make the case for that. No, the real question is, is Linux ready for Dad? Are the usual snarky geeks in forums like linuxquestions.org ready to provide help to an octagenerian ex-cop whose main interface with computers through most of his professional career was a Burroughs “large system”. Suddenly I’m having to consider whether I want to trust a member of my family to the good will of the open source community.

Food for thought.

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