.

[ahlknysvgmwso]

.

 

[Langford]

You shouldn't need any antivirus, but you may want to grab ClamAV because it never hurts to be prepared.

Thunderbird will run swell

Firefox should work fine. Even if for some weird reason they needed IE, there are ways of making IE run on Linux.

You can use a script like automatix to grab the audio player you need.

There is probably something for the printer.

It will probably just plug and see the camera, but you may have to remount it if it gets the file system wrong. It's not too hard.

I don't know if there is stuff like Limewire, but I bet there is (I just haven't checked). In a pinch you may be able to use wine to run a windows P2P app.

Gaim

 

[RavenD]

Pretty sure you can get DC++ to run on linux. Better than limewire imho.

 

[osalcido]

geez instead of converting your whole family to linux maybe you should try it and learn it yourself?

 

[As I Lay Dying]

Reason for doing so: I'm sick of dickin around with viruses and crap on a Windows machine....so that brings me to question number one:

Linux will need NO antivirus and antispyware software installed, and my parents/sister who click on every little thing won't get into any trouble...correct?

correct besides most anti-virus scanners only scan windows virii to prevent them form spreading. I dont run a virus scanner, or need spyware remover.

Okay. My parents currently are using Microsoft Outlook to do their email and stuff. Can I use thunderbird on Linux? Is it hard to transfer all the contacts and stored emails and junk over? Is it easy to setup the thunderbird client? (as easy as outlook at least?)

yes you can use thunderbird. Use outlooks export your contacts and emails, and thunderbird should import them.

My mom does some online banking and stuff, will Firefox support these sites? Is there an "Internet explorer" of linux that will support every site?

Ummm I believe so, I do internet banking with firefox no problem in linux and windows.

Music, I can just transfer all the stuff right over as .mp3 and there will probably be a decent audio player built into my ubuntu distro right?

yes, if not install amarok its easy to do, best linux audio player imho. But rhythm box is great as well.

Printer/Scanner support: We have a Canon MP530 printer scanner copier thing, and an HP 932c deskjet printer.......I believe i've found a driver for the 932 (if I can figure out how to install it when the time comes) but the only driver I could find for the Canon costs money ( ). Is there some sort of generic driver that might work for the scanner part at least? What should I do in this area?

about the canon I dunno, see pop in the ubuntu live disc an see if it sees it.

Digital camera: Im assuming i'll have USB support out-of-the-box with this ubuntu distro, and that the camera will show up as a USB mass storage device...correct me if im wrong...

you are correct. it quietly is shown on the desktop, no annoying pop up balloon, or telling you the obvious. (this alone makes OSX and Linux a million times less annoying the windows) God damn I hate pluging in usb devices in windows. /shudders

Downloading music: are there any P2P clients like limewire for linux? Torrents are probably too much for my family to handle, plus finding the content they want will be more difficult with torrents.....any suggestions here?

errr....there is DC++, frostwire the linux version of limewire, nicotine+ a linux client for soulseek.

MSN (instant messaging): I believe GAIM will work fine here......

Whew. I believe that is all. Hopefully this will be easier than I'm imagining in my head right now......Thanks for any suggestions.[/QUOTE]

Amsn is way better........but gaim is multi-protocol

 

[Stormscape]

There's also a native Linux Limewire, if you people are smart enough to actually look on their site.
That aside, almost everything will work fine.

 

[Antheus]

automatix will pretty much get most of the stuff you need it to should you decided to go the ubuntu route (not sure if it's cross-distro). It'll download all the necessary codecs which linux doesn't come with for legality reasons, and you'll be able to install pretty much everything you listed straight from there.

 

[J Macker]

Reason for doing so: I'm sick of dickin around with viruses and crap on a Windows machine....
Downloading music: are there any P2P clients like limewire for linux? Torrents are probably too much for my family to handle, plus finding the content they want will be more difficult with torrents.....any suggestions here?

well, no wonder they are getting viruses. In my view, the limewire / gnutella networks are just as bad as grokster & has been napster.

Torrents. end of story

 

[DistributedBen]

I don't think there is a way to export Outlook emails (in mass, anyways) to something Thunderbird will be able to import. I use TB on Windows and last time I checked there wasn't a way to do so. That was a while ago though.

Seems like it would be easier to just install one of the many free or low cost AV programs and maybe buy a CD or two.

 

[Dangman]

For a linux P2P client, I'd try out Amule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMule

@ DistributedBen

You can export Outlook emails into Thunderbird. Just need to do a little trick first:

http://robertpeloschek.blogspot.com/2005/11/importing-mozilla-thunderbird-mails-in.html

 

[Carlosinfl]

I am very confident anyone forced or tricked onto Linux will remain or be back on Windows in less than 60 days.

You have a good idea, it just never works. You use Linux because you want to. I have tried this route already and it never works out.

 

[juu801]

You could set up qemu or vmware player to run XP inside of Ubuntu. I do this and have been able to get 75% of my apps to work.

It was hard enough getting my family to stop using IE let alone trying to explain Linux to them. If it's different they don't like it. On the other hand my grandma runs Mepis. She had no prior PC experience and can't tell the difference. Although her PC is a glorified solitaire machine.

 

[Carlosinfl]

And for this reason I'm considering setting it up as a dual boot with windows xp home. That way if linux "just won't do" for something, its a simple restart to get it done....-shrug- I hate to say it, but I am thinking what you are saying in the back of my mind.

Yup - I also tried the dual boot and that was just a lost space of 5GB's for me. My mom now is happy on Debian but honestly she perhaps still thinks that she is on Windows. I had to install Limewire, Firefox 2.0, Thunderbird, and Google Earth. She is fine except she does like Open Office which is understandable. She loves the fact that I can fix her PC via SSH and send her all my files via scp (SSH) so we don't have to worry about .zip files through email.

So far so good.

My brother was a complete disaster. He bitched about XMMS sucked and he can't play games. Back then there was no flash v9 so he was stuck with 7 and you could not see media via Myspace so the world was going to end.

 

[Stormscape]

I don't mean any offense to your family, but your brother sounds like a bit of a douchebag.
In regards to XMMS, he's sorta right, it isn't all that good. It acts like Winamp 2.x, so no video support. Although if he wasn't so whiny, people would have probably told him about VLC.

 

[Ghettobox]

And for this reason I'm considering setting it up as a dual boot with windows xp home. That way if linux "just won't do" for something, its a simple restart to get it done....-shrug- I hate to say it, but I am thinking what you are saying in the back of my mind.

i wouldnt be so sure. My ex and me had a little pos PC running ME for her and her work stuff. luckily It died. I built her a box form a bunch of parts. put BSD on it. set it all up she had it running for wuite some time. the it too odied when we had some flooding in the basement. Anyhow I replaced it with an old IBM laptop with xp on it. Had to put firefox on it, openoffiice and such. She complains to this day she wants her BSD back on..but since i am not getting any from her anymore..she can do it herself.

ghettobox

 

[Cheetoz]

apollon connects to ares, fasttrack, and gnutella networks.(for p2p)

 

[jimmyb]

I am very confident anyone forced or tricked onto Linux will remain or be back on Windows in less than 60 days.

I'm inclined to agree. This is something they have to want to do. It's also very important that you can quickly assist with desktop related issues (read: not server issues).

Actually this happened to me once about 12 years ago when I came home to discover OS/2 as the only OS on the family computer. I was not pleased...

Just make sure they are fully aware of what they are getting themselves into, and that there will likely be complications here and there.

 

[Zwitterion]

There isn't any good reason for wanting your whole family to use Linux.

And scanning is tricky... at best.