My bucket list is moving along

Son_of_Perdition

Senior Member
Two park residents were complaining again about being forced to install Win10 on their older desktops. Aggravating popups, one called me asked me to come have a looksee. She had an ACER desktop, 5 YO, ethernet connected with a fancy new 24" monitor he son had given her. I cleaned up what I could, what in my now limited Windows experience allowed me. 2 days later the popups were back. She like many in the park use email, web surfing, grandkids pictures & simple games. I told her she should expect the interference until she upgrades. She asked me what could be done. Simple, trash your tether to MicroSoft & embrace Linux. She said her son works for Cray computers & has suggested it, but she was reluctant as I find with most.

She gave me permission to install it. I set it up dual boot with Linux & Win 7. 3 days later, she asked me to get rid of Win 7, she had been playing with Linux & felt very comfortable with it and wanted to avoid the boot menu. I re-installed Mint, her comments the next game night was, 'working great loves the clarity of the monitor & is amazed at the speed of the shutdown process'. She's now a convert, that very night her friend called & wanted her desktop installed with the same. I'm up to 6 converted believers now only 174 more to go. They both have gladly accepted the concept of 'FREE' & secure.
 

SoP, +1 for Mint, great choice for newly 'recruited' Linux users. ;) Another distro with a great graphic experience(out-of-the-box) is Zorin. I have my gtx 970 running folding@home on the GPU cell processors- greatly increasing the return of work units.

https://folding.stanford.edu/home/guide/linux-install-guide/

Tried Zorin several years back, liked it. Also found PCLinuxOS was another good rolling distro (it found my outdated wireless card) & installed the drivers during install, something I've found that Mint or openSUSE didn't. I looked into the folding but decided that because I change my configuration almost as often as my shirt, I would be more of a hinderance than help. After the breach of the 21st Feb of Mint I got nervous & downloaded Mint & reinstalled it, I timed it, about an hour & 15 minutes from boot to completely configured system. And, no nagging popups or unplanned updates.

A friend I worked with for many years, also a team member of our UNIX/Linux support & still an out of state Facebook friend reported that as a support manager of his most recent employer, they are swamped with applications for UNIX/Linux support from former MS certified specialists. Training & schooling in Linux is what his employer needs but can't fill the positions. My friend was also a professor at a local 4 year university for many years. He said he was in a unique position for head hunting duties with his former students. The offers are very competitive with many other companies & has been growing for the last few years, he's had to alter his approach & money to interest them.

My patience is growing real thin concerning my wife & her fixation with Windows. I show my frustration every time she gets a pop up wanting to update this or update that. The latest was AVAST. Her 30 trial period run out & it wanted her to register for either the 'free' version or the more complete 'fee' version. When we purchased her new laptop with Win10 a few months back, she lost her marble game she played. They haven't updated or created one that works with 10 or maybe the $6.99 wasn't worth the effort. Now the only games she plays is ad laden FreeCell & Majhong. Both without ads or very, very simular on Linux. I keep telling her she would be happy with Linux & I can create icons on the Linux desktop.

Latest Linux news & Dell laptops: http://www.cio.com/article/3045925/heres-a-look-inside-dells-strategy-for-linux-pcs.html
 

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