Living on a cloud, a private cloud

[bigbear]

I want to share with folks how my family uses computers having only Linux based machines in the house. To me, having computers in the home should be because there are tasks that need to be accomplished. creating documents for homework or the job and so on.

Here's how my computers work in my home.

1) Computers now rival television and stereo for multimedia entertainment. in fact, my stereo system broke and I just haven't bought a new one. For a reasonable price, a nice set of speakers can be bought and hooked up to turn the computer into a stereo replacement. My machines play back DVD's and avi files for movies. There are hundreds of online sites that one can play tv show episodes, some for a low cost, many for no cost but use advertising.

2) Computers have taken much of the video game entertainment spotlight as well. My kids have a PlayStation setup and a fair number of popular games. They spend at least as much of their allowed game time playing online games as they do the PlayStation, if not more. There are quite a few native Linux based games they like as well and as far as I am concerned, the Linux based educational games are far better than those that can be purchased otherwise

3) Online office suites, dubious as their providers may be, are perhaps one of the single greatest advances in computer usage. For example, Google docs makes doing homework and saving non private documents a snap and your files are accessible anywhere you have an internet connection. for my kids, this means there are no more 'lost' homework assignments and for me, no more 'forgotten' reports or presentations back at the home office. The best part is, using a local office suite like OpenOffice (or what ever you use) you can create the documents in private, on your own machine and upload (or download) to Docs only those you need to have online. This keeps a good degree of local control over what you have online.

In short, I don't miss Windows at all myself in my house. My wife only regrets that the number of educational games we did pay for could still be accessible if only to recoup the cost of them. The kids haven't missed a beat. They have a treasure trove of media and games between what is online and local apps and media that has obscured or at least matched what they had in Windows previously.

My point here is that I am the only tech geek in my house. My wife and kids are so mainstream it isn't funny. I have been able to make Linux based computers work in the household for pretty much every need they have that a computer is used for. Luckily for me, there were no games in Win that they were so glued to they couldn't live without.

I want to help others use Linux and be as usable as I have. Both at home and in the office.

Big Bear

[igor948]

Very interesting. I can't seem to get my family off of Windows. My wife and I need it for our jobs (thought I dual-boot and seldom use the Windows partition). My kids 24, 21, and 18, seem to be entrenched. My daughter is the most open (she's the youngest). I showed her TeenPup, and she said "That is cute, it looks like it makes your computer like your iPhone". Unfortunately, I still had to put Windows on her laptop because her college makes her take MS Office classes (and they have to turn in screen shots), and I don't have money and time to investigate CrossOver Office or similar product. My boys have both flirted with GNU/Linux and open source (they both use OpenOffice), but they are hard-core gamers that can't live without their Windows.

My servers are obviously BEL or I wouldn't have found these forums. I have just set up a box running Ubuntu Studio to replace a dying XP box that I user for media production. I am also in the process of setting up a computer to run VortexBox to be a media server for the house since it will stream to other computers and supposedly iPhones.

Thanks for your help and advice throughout the year BigBear (or is it BigBee now? )! Hope you and your family have a good Christmas.

[bigbear]

Thank you, back atcha

Every group of people, especially a family, is going to have a bit of a different environment. due to ages and geography and a lot of other relative factors, being non-windows can be much more difficult. Outside pressures such as universities who unwittingly play into the proprietary game also make a dent in how we use computers in a family.

The first step I found making it easier was to start with the apps. FireFox or other browsers that are opensource, apps like OpenOffice.org, thunderbird for email, along those lines

In some cases, it comes down to carrying the 'Dad' 2x4 and telling them they just need to get used to it because I am not paying for MS when I got a used laptop or the like come into the house.

There was a local school Iwas working with who insisted that students have only MS OS and use MS Office on personal equipment.

I talked to the and asked why the unreasonable demands, because I most certainly would not send my kids to a school telling me what to do with computers I bought. They said that only MS OS would be able to access the school network and that only MS Office would be usable for sharing documents.

At that time, right in front of them, I fired up my OpenSuse based Laptop and logged into the wifi network. then set it in front of him to show him (the Principal) HE was thoguhtful for a moment but asked me how I did that as their MS certified consultant told them that all machines MUST be MS compliant or would not be compatible. sigh.

I then showed him the beauty and wonder of Google Education version of the Docs service and how when students use that, they can share their documents for assignments and add the teacher as a share and the teacher can make corrections, etc without even printing the doc. saving lots of paper and time and 'losing' documents. Needless to say, he was impressed and intends to show same things to this intelligent 'consultant' who either didn't know about these technologies or only pushes MS solutions (he supposedly comes from a third party shop so if they only push MS software, he is ignorant or has a good old boy deal going).

It just goes to show how MS and their brainwashees will go to any length to keep users locked into their products.

have a good holiday.

Big Bear

[ClareOldie]

My wife does not use a computer but my three kids do ..... 24, 22, 19 .... the youngest, daughter, is in college.
The eldest was/is a gamer and must have Win.
I put Linux on it and told him that he was responsible for Windows, and I would look after Linux. In the last year his use has changed ..... he rarely logs into Win as his gaming has reduced, but uses Lin daily.
The second son plays some Win games ...... football manager type .... but got a Playstation this Xmas, so I guess his Win use will be near nil from now on as he uses the PC for online stiff such as Facebook, Twitter, email and browsing etc.

The girl in college has a Laptop which is a bit old and needs a new one for the college stuff ..... she has put off the purchase until after Xmas to get best price.
In the meantime she is using Linux for her College stuff, but will need to install a bunch of proprietary apps soon to ensure ehs doesn't fall behind in a module or two.

All were told the same as the first .... they support any OS that is not Linux. The girl lasted longest, until eventually Win got too much for her ....... she is now a Linux advocate and would not boot into Win unless needed for something specific.

Meanwhile I have had an easy life ...... no more Win viruses etc to attend to. The kids are nearly paranoid about letting Win on line! They know the work ahead if they catch something ..... do it themselves or pay for it .... else ditch Win for good!

In all honesty I have been amazed at the change in them (middly kid could care less what he uses). It all came down to convenience and laziness ........ it was easier to try to get on with Linux than to learn how to repair Win!

BTW, my daughter absolutely hates Puppy ....... not a real OS, too childish and awkward and so on .....

Happy new year to all!

[igor948]

Glad to hear of your successes, Clare,
Sounds like it was a good way to end your family tech support days!