On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 12:02 PM, Timothy Wood <tim.wood...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The family wants to use it as a replacement for my mom's laptop, which > has battery problems. And my dad is very much against "Linux" as he > understands it. Probably because whenever I'm spending a lot of time > doing computer work, it's because I'm solving a technical problem with > "Linux." Technical hobby experimentation things that ordinary > household users would never do; problems they would never have. Or > perhaps he's afraid of a package interdependency problem I once had > (ok, ok, 3 times) that left my desktop completely whacked for half a > day. It was something I brought upon myself, and something I, with > some work, fixed. And might I add that the open source software > involved (linux, gnu, kubuntu, aptitude, the root console) is > extremely well suited to resolving problems without leaving permanent > damage. Something Windows, unfortunately, is not. > > Anyway, I've determined that the recovery partition's program actually > did destroy the data on my ntfs partition now. So it's either buy a > repair cd from Asus (I called them today, and that was the only > solution they had for me), or return to the known good Ubuntu. But my > folks might buy themselves another computer instead. In which case > I'll do with this one as I will, and have it ready for me when I get > back in two years. > > Thanks for all your help though. I've learned a great deal about > BOOTMGR, GRUB, and the .wim file archive format. And most of all: > don't let somebody else (or their software) make decisions about how > you configure your software. Do it yourself. I say that because I > did not need to run the recovery utility in the first place, I did it > for convenience. > > Timothy Wood > > P.S. Given a decent internet connection (which I have not), half a > care about Windows 7 Lame Starter Edition (nope), and a dozen more > hours to waste (forget it), I could potentially download Microsoft's > Windows Automatic Installation Kit (2GB). It contains the utilities > necessary to, on Windows, unpack the .wim restore archives and > manually restore my system, but I don't have the prerequisites. > > My wife hated Linux when we were fist married, now she really likes it (I won't go to love it yet), but she will even defend Linux. I tinkered around with my computer a lot when we were first married and she got the idea that it was always broken, but I was just trying bleeding edge things. We moved and she couldn't have her computer set-up any more due to space constraints so she would use my Linux desktop while I was at work, I just used my Mac laptop instead so I quit doing experimental things on the desktop and it was stable for her (until Adobe pulled Flash 9 for Linux without a replacement which I didn't apt-get upgrade on that machine until my laptop got version 10). That is when she started liking Linux. Now I use my netbook and she uses my Linux Desktop with two monitors that she calls hers. She rarely uses the Mac G4 that I have on the KVM switch that she used to use. If I were you, I would put on a Long term stable version of Ubuntu with a cron to do updates once a week for security patches and just make it available. If it's another computer for them to use when all the other ones are used, they may start to use it and like it. Robert
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