Debateables

I really don't know how weekends can go this fast.  I swear I just sat my suitcase down.  Now, I'm loading it up again...  Yeesh...

Oh well...  Work is work, and I'm glad I have it.  But the travel can be a bit wearing...

Anyway, after the great BSD debacle, I've been fiddling with (of all things) Ubuntu.  Had my WUBI install (which is 12.10) on the Toshiba up/running for a bit, then fired up the T61 (which is 12.04).  I have in all honesty admit, I don't mind Unity.  Maybe it's coming from a Mac background (which I know draws snickers in some circles), but I really don't mind it.  It's fast, it's convenient.  I hardly notice it being there.  Granted, I'm running it on fairly healthy systems, with sufficient horsepower and memory, but...

To each his own, though.  Ubuntu was how I (and a heck of a lot of other people) came into Linux.  It remains a distinctive part of my OS stable, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Which is, of course, why I'm sitting here with PhatSlacko booted on the T61...

Actually, I've got a Puppy booted because I was trying to decide something.  Let me explain...

My partner at work was telling me about some old hardware he had about his house, which was still of respectable spec, but which had fallen on hard times.  In particular, he had his last laptop which had become the homeplace to a horde of malware, etc., etc.  However, he didn't know what to do, etc., etc.  (Is this story starting to sound familiar?)

I told him about DBAN to clean the hard drive off.  He seemed to like that idea, so I gently broached the subject of Linux.  Less enthusiasm on that point, but he seemed a little open.  (He's a whizz with a spreadsheet, but heaven forbid you ask him to monkey with system stuff.  I once mentioned doing some stuff in the OS X Terminal, and he went glassy-eyed...)

I did show him Bodhi on the T400 (just the "laptop" interface I was using), and he seemed to like it.  But he seemed hesitant, as though I were trying to lure him into a poison garden, and some bit of leafy software was going to uncurl a venomous tentacle towards him...  Still, he thought a copy of that "Boot-n-Nuke" thing might be OK...

So, here I am, getting ready to burn him a copy of DBAN, and thinking about maybe burning him a copy of something like PhatSlacko or Precise Puppy.  Something he could boot and run from the CD, not have to install, etc.

But I'm worried.  Simple as they are, neither PhatSlacko nor Precise Puppy are really for complete newcomers to the Linux world.  Hell, I have a vague idea of what I'm doing, and I still bungle up everything on occasion.  (While booting this session, I had a bit of an issue, as the wireless on the T61 is a bit different from the T400.  And when I went to reset the wireless, I ended up deleting my home profile because I was only half paying attention to what I was doing.  For me, it was just the annoyance of clicking back through and setting the profile up again.  I could only imagine if it were my partner or, even more worrisome, his wife, who is truly technically disinclined.)

The Puppies come with such a wonderful plethora of software, it's often difficult to find what you need, even when you know it's there.  (I had a devil of a time finding the touchpad setup, even though I knew it was in the "Wizard Wizard" [or "Control Panel" in FatDog].  I have a nagging horror at having to explain to my partner the "Wizard Wizard", let alone that he should select the "easy" settings for wireless on his first bootup...

On top of this, I also have vague memories of Phat coming with its desktop icons not set up properly.  The Default programs hadn't been reset from AbiWord and Gnumeric to their LibreOffice equivalents.  Again, easy to change, if you know what you're doing...   I cringe at trying to explain that...

So,  I don't know...  Should I or shouldn't I?  It's a heavy debate...

And, yet, through all of this, I'm happily going to hand him a copy of DBAN.  That's sort of like debating explaining a nuclear power plant to someone, while cheerfully handing over a fully-functional thermonuclear weapon...

I'm beginning to worry about myself...