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Wednesday, 15th October 2008 / 6 Comments »

The great Ubuntu experiment

Many months ago, some very non-tech savvy friends where having trouble with their computer. Being someone that does ‘IT stuff’ meant I got called to help out their failing machine. What I found was a Windows XP machine riddled with malware, virus and who knows what else. Knowing it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to fix it, I decided on a bold move, replace it with Ubuntu.

The happy couple had never heard of Linux, let alone Ubuntu, before. Their experience with other operating systems other than Windows based machines was a couple of five minute plays with my mac to checkout something online a few years ago. I decided at the onset not to mention that their ‘replacement’ machine would be running an operating system other than windows.

Typical usage

The happy couple have their one and only PC connected to their large flat screen TV in the living room, and use a bluetooth keyboard/mouse. They have broadband, but they only turn the PC on when they’re using it, which is only a few times a week, and then their usage is pretty limited to between half and hour to an hour a session. They surf the web, which consists mainly of TradeMe and YouTube, use Picasa and email.

A fortunate user test

Once I did the standard Ubuntu install, which went painlessly, I procrastinated a bit on getting everything finished up, which was fortunate. The happy couple dropped by one weekend and wanted to check their email and do a few things on the web, so I let me loose on their new Ubuntu machine. They failed miserably at even finding Firefox to begin with, and in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t mention it was their machine.

A quick fix

What I realised from this impromptu (and complete unscientific) user test was that the first steps a typical user needs to take in Ubuntu still aren’t good enough for every day people. There was no way I could drop the happy couple a default Ubuntu machine and expect them to pick it up on their own without major support from me. The only course of action was to customise, and in a direction that felt a little wrong. Using Avant Window Navigator and some of the theme stuff from Mac4Lin I hoped I could fill the gaps for the majority of the issues I observed.

In conclusion

Several months later and the happy couple love their new machine, it’s stable, fast and other than the odd glitch (Flash in Firefox sometimes doesn’t work), they are really happy with Ubuntu. I’m not saying that installing Ubuntu is easier than XP, the vast majority of people will never see this step. But if the same effort that went into the install process could be directed into the usability of the desktop, maybe in a few years Linux will be ready for the mainstream.