Michael Dolan Dot Com

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Seen on campus: 2 Ubuntu Laptop Success Stories

I have two younger sisters who are currently in college – both at the same school. It’s a private college and has what I would consider your average IT setup for a campus.

Within the first two weeks, both had their laptops infected by viruses separately – different viruses, different times. One was running XP, the other Vista on you basic Dell laptops. Of course, who did they call? Answer: me.

Well, I took in both laptops and tried to fix them. I found that viruses today are far more advanced – one modified the MBR and the other completely wiped out the Dell recovery partition – savvy indeed. I did my best to try re-installing their respective Windows OSs, but I found that Microsoft’s licensing practices prevented me from succeeding. First, I only had Pro CDs of XP and Vista so the Home license keys on the underside of each laptop were of no use. I’d install the OS, then Microsoft Genuine Advantage would block me… thanks Microsoft.

So I had them try calling Dell – of course, no luck. They wouldn’t send a replacement media for Windows. If I had the time and energy, I’d file a lawsuit against them tomorrow.

So I turned to my laptop OS of choice: Ubuntu. No chance for a license key or media obtainment problem.

My sisters had both seen me using Ubuntu before so they had seen “what it looked like” but they never knew it wasn’t Windows. When I loaded it on their laptops, they actually didn’t know it wasn’t Windows. In fact, the first thing they both did was try downloading/installing iTunes from Apple.com. No luck – Apple, where’s an Ubuntu client?

So I set them up with all the software they needed for iPods. They actually installed their own printers without even calling me (HP printers – great compatibility). They use OpenOffice for their papers/spreadsheets/presentations, Firefox was not new to them, and Evolution is just as easy as Outlook.

They’re now both about to close out their first semester – both made it on Ubuntu alone. And the best news – not a single virus.

More amazingly, the overall number of “support requests” have gone down. Even when they had Windows there were other reasons for calls, but now… only an occassional “how do I?” type question here or there. It’s been great. They easily download from the digital cameras, they manage their music collections (no corrupted iTunes libraries), and they use all the latest social media networks. Now they would both prefer to get a Mac, but that’s the really interesting part – they have no need for Windows.

We’re making progress. Ubuntu is leading the way.