My wife and Linux...........

[ambertone]

I've used Linux full time for three years. My wife "clung" to XP as if she'd jumped off the Titanic and XP was a heated life raft. The turning point came when the anti virus software (Kaspersky) was driving her nuts with it's intrusive permission seeking popups.

Now I've always used KDE, why? It in my opinion looks "nicer" than Gnome. After using PCLinuxOS for two years then migrating to Mandriva with KDE4 I finally convinced her to change to Mandriva. Now I've found as Mandy went from 4.0 to 4.3 things on my PC were gradually slowing down and I was getting the "this worked in Windows" crap from my wife. Now as a sideline she had Ubuntu XFCE in her laptop (used for web when in bed at night) and she never complained about it but the laptop started playing up. I was not sure if it was hardware or software so I decided to change disto to see.

Now I've always hated Ubuntu because it's as ugly as a "basket full of Monkey butts" but I'd always has a soft spot for Mint. That came from when I was a newbie and Mint had the audio / video codecs installed. I installed Mint on her Dell and unfortunatley it did turn out to be the laptop with the issue but she never complained about Mint. Some simple maths here: number of compliants versus OS = WSR (Wife Satisfaction Rating)

I installed Mint on her desktop two weeks ago and she loves it (what that really means is she can't complain about it) One point for Mint. (I also changed to Mint)

Feel free to post your partner stories here.

Rod

[belovedmonster]

It sounds to me like your wife prefers GTK+ Linux (Gnome and XFCE). Personally if you sat me down in front of KDE I wouldn't like Linux much either. Some people just prefer GTK+ and Gnome over KDE (people with taste and sophistication )

This kinda presents a problem with Linux really... what if the person you show Linux to would have loved it if it was XFCE but because it was KDE they saw they went back to windows, or what if they would love Moblin if they saw it, but instead they saw the Ubuntu netbook remix. I can see a lot of potential for people being put off not by the over whelming choice, but because they were introduced to the wrong choice for them and never thought to explore the others.

[DrHu]

It sounds to me like your wife prefers GTK+ Linux (Gnome and XFCE). Personally if you sat me down in front of KDE I wouldn't like Linux much either. Some people just prefer GTK+ and Gnome over KDE (people with taste and sophistication ;))

I have a shelf full of taste and sophistication, just waiting to be uncorked!

I always preferred KDE 3x for its better customization via the menu structure, and more choices

KDE 4x while initially a jarring change is continually improving, wnd can run most/all kde 3x applications that people like to use

Too much, too little choice seems to be the dilemma (for most), and for windows users, if it doesn't work like it does in windows, also seems to be a problem
--perhaps they have forgotten the enforced changes made by winXP to Vista, and now win7 which doesn't change Vista operations that much; or for applications, if they used Ms office 97, the change to 2003, then 2007 for office suite must have been just as jarring a change

And having gotten used to that type of change, they should probably be well prepared for the few changes that Linux gets them to use.