Granny Picks Linux Over Windows, OS/X, FreeBSD...
Granny heads out on a new adventure and realizes there's nothing so sweet as Linux running KDE.
Read more of our Reallylinux.com Granny Files:
Linux Makes Granny Cry and
Even Granny Has Linux Installed and
Granny Dumps MS-Office for Star-Office.
Hello my dear Linux friend,
Thank you for stopping
in to read my newest thoughts about Linux and that very easy to learn
and use KDE desktop. I want to share an adventure I had
thanks to my son. I'll be the first to admit that I don't get
out much. Between my rheumatism, bursitis, and my rather clunky hip,
going to the bathroom is an adventure in itself.
But I did indeed go
last week. Thanks to my son's perseverance and patience I was
finally able to visit his office. I'm very proud of him and all of
those brilliant computer people. I think people who write computer
programs are absolutely amazing!
It all began last
Friday, when Jason, that's my big boy, drove me to his office. We
began the tour downstairs and Jason showed me where the receptionists spend their days. I met a nice blonde
gal named Susie. She was a pretty little lady although a bit thin.
As I approached her, I thought she might be great for Jason until...
She let out an "Oh,
sh$@!"
It shocked me so much
that I had to sit down right there on the floor of the lobby. Susie,
such a sweet looking young gal, seemed so upset. She apologized and helped
me up and then went back to working. As Jason held my arm keeping me
steady, dear little Susie yelped again. This time I was thankfully
holding on to the front desk and Jason had my arm.
When I asked this young
lady what was bothering her so greatly, she pushed her monitor
slightly so I could have a look. All I saw was a bright blue screen
with some jibberish text. I didn't have my glasses on so I can't
tell you what it said, but the message must have been quite upsetting
to make a nice young gal spew such harsh words!
I looked up at Jason
who was still holding my arm, and he softly said, "Windows, mom."
Now I finally understood why this sweet young gal suffered so. I
opened my purse and handed little Susie, my goodness how thin and
pale she looked, a Knoppix Live
Linux
CD. "Here you are honey. This will help cheer you up."
I wanted to share some
of my raisin and date snack with this young emaciated gal, but Jason
was already pulling me along to the next stop.
If that poor girl knew
how easy and compatible using
OpenOffice is, or the stability of Linux she would be a lot
better off.
We walked a few steps
down the hall and entered a large room filled with posters, pictures,
signs, and paper everywhere. I had never seen such a clutter and
immediately began to pick up papers that had fallen on the floor or
been thrown together in untidy piles on nearby desks.
Jason kept insisting I
stop cleaning up and meet his friends. One of the gentleman, a tall
stout man, stood and greeted me. He was very well dressed and
impressively courteous.
I turned the corner to
peak at his monitor. He was designing a sphere of some kind with
many details. It looked like he was painting a picture of a planet
and I was quite impressed by the beauty and the detail. I asked him
how long it took to draw this pretty sphere, to which he replied,
"oh, a couple of days."
I couldn't believe my
ears. How could a sphere like this take him so long? I shook my
head in disbelief. Jason tried to explain that he was creating three
dimentional figgy majiggy, but it didn't matter.
I told that young man
he should be ashamed of taking so much time to draw a sphere. Oh, if
I had my KDE running Gimp
I could draw a sphere with shading, directional lighting and floating
star background in just a few minutes. Jason kept insisting the
graphic was much more complex than all that, but I wouldn't have
it. I told that young man to get cracking or his employer may crack
a few with his whip!
Of course it would also
not hurt if instead of paying
a lot of money for all that fancy software he was using, he could
enjoy the benefits from free open
source programs.
Next we stepped into a
fancy elevator. "Is this where you work Jason?"
"No mom, I'm on the
next
floor up, this is the computer room."
"You work all
the way up top then!" I was so proud of my son.
As we stepped out we
were greeted by a burly man, bearded and soft spoken. He welcomed us
and asked if I would like to see the computer room. I wasn't sure
I could keep walking like this, even with my prosthetic shoes. But
he kindly grabbed my hand and led me into a very large and noisy
room. It was so cold
I felt my bones freeze up.
I was told this was the
server room and that all of these machines were running free BS.
Jason kept insisting I refer to it as Dee, he said, "no mom, it's
Free BS Dee." But I couldn't
figure how some lady named Dee could conceive of such a thing. All I
noticed was that these machines were apparently running so hot
using this Dee software that the room was set to arctic frost. The
big burly man explained how the major part of his day is spent making
sure the servers are all up and running. I began to share with him
how I never have to worry about my Linux server at home. I asked him
if he could show me the monitor he uses. He walked me over to a
large cabinet and pulled out a keyboard and flicked on the monitor.
I understand why this
poor man had to keep standing even to use his computer in such an
extremely cold room. I felt myself weaken and had trouble standing.
Nevertheless, he quickly showed me some of what he does. I asked him
if he wouldn't prefer to use a more
graphical desktop, and whether he didn't prefer to point and
click rather than type so many commands. He didn't quite
understand me, so Jason helped.
"My mom's quite
fond of using Linux running the KDE desktop. She loves the icons and
all." To which the burly man smiled in acknowledgment.
I wish I had remembered
to share with that gentleman this great article regarding the
comparison between FreeBSD
and Linux as web servers.
Well, off we went. It
was finally time for me to visit Jason's office. I wished the nice
man farewell and walked back into the elevator.
As we stepped out,
Jason met another of his friends. They were all so courteous and
friendly. Everyone was on such good terms, calling each other by
their first names and patting
each other on the back.
Jason led me into a
room that looked more like a dumping
ground for computer parts. In the corner, on the only clean
desk, was a large black cube with a monitor, printer and other fancy
gadgets.
"What's that
Jason," I asked, pointing at the black cube.
"Oh, that's the
next machine," Jason responded matter-of-factly.
I was excited to be
able to see the future and pleaded with Jason to let me try out this
next machine before we moved on. He didn't seem to be very
interested. But he compliantly pushed up a chair and told me to
enjoy.
I thought the black
mouse was very fancy and the whole system was quite spectacular
looking. Jason typed his name and password and then told me to try
out a few things.
I was impressed by the
uncluttered
desktop. It was very pretty to look at. I clicked a few icons
and then suddenly was shocked to hear a woman's voice.
"Your printer is out
of paper." "Your printer is out of paper."
"What's this all
about," I demanded of Jason. This next system talked with such
femininity and seductiveness I began to worry about all of these
young vulnerable men.
I demanded to know who
had concocted such a machine that it would try to seduce men and
distract them with a female voice. Jason told me it was made by the
same man who had led the creation of those systems the artists were
using.
"He's trying to
distract you men from working! You need to get a practical computer
that fosters work!" Jason just shook his head.
Then he grabbed my arm
and gently led me into his office next door. There I saw several
systems all running that familiar and comforting KDE desktop. I sat
down and let out a sigh.
I asked Jason if I
could send aunt Bertha an email using Kmail to share my adventure. I
clicked a few icons, typed away in glee, then sent off my note.
I started Gimp and made
a sphere using the script-fu, added a few extra lighting effects,
used supernova to create a few dozen brilliant stars and showed Jason
what I had been telling his friend from downstairs. Jason just
smiled. Then I started his Kwrite
and began typing my adventure of the day so I would not forget.
Time flew as I played
with more and more applications that I was so familiar with in the
KDE environment. "All these wonderful free programs," I thought
to myself as I opened application after application.
All too soon it was
time for me to head back home. I needed to take my medicine and to
have a few hours of snoozing before dinner. Jason had shown me so
many wonderful and interesting things. I begged him to go back and
check on that poor little Susie. Jason assured me he intended to
check her out every day.
Thankfully, I was back
at home and my last act before going to sleep was to kiss my monitor
and say a word of thanks that I had a computer with Linux/KDE that
treated me so kindly.
So ends my adventure of
the week. I must admit I enjoyed seeing so many different computers,
but nothing could ever replace my friendly and familiar Linux/KDE.
Love,
Granny
ReallyLinux.com
Special Ed writer
Many more beginner articles are available here.
Share your thoughts and opinions with Granny on our Message Boards