Episode: 532
Title: HPR0532: Ubuntu interview
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0532/hpr0532.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 22:36:20

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All right, this is Patrick Archboh, and I'm here with my sister, WinGobble.
Win started using Ubuntu Linux back in September 2009, and we're going to talk a little bit
about her experience.
For the record today is Saturday, March 20, 2010.
Win, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am a public school kindergarten teacher in South Carolina.
I'm also a small business owner.
I have a company that trains teachers.
I'm a mother of two boys.
What is your computer background?
What do you use your computer for?
I use my computer for, in the public school system, for emails and PowerPoint presentations
that we do for students and some spreadsheet applications.
In my business, I use the computer for the website and some spreadsheets and sending documents
to folks, letters and emails and things.
How about just kicking around a house?
Well, then we have to introduce Facebook and lots of emails.
And how about the rest of your family?
Are they using what operating system are they using?
We use Ubuntu, and the whole family uses that.
It's on our laptop that works, and my husband is new to the computer, but he's been turned
on to Facebook, so he uses it a lot.
He's rather addicted.
My sons like to play games and primarily school games for one son and a lot of YouTube
watching.
We are really into wrestling, and so we watch a lot of wrestling videos.
Okay, very good.
So, had you ever heard of Linux before September 2009?
Never.
Okay.
Have you heard of any other Linux distributions besides Ubuntu since you got introduced
to Ubuntu?
No.
Okay, so Ubuntu's it for us.
That's it.
How did you get involved with Ubuntu?
Well, I had a computer to die on me, and it needed to be redone, or at least I thought
it needed to be redone, but I didn't have my Windows operating system disk, and I have
no number to confirm that I have it.
So, I was really frustrated, and just figured, why do I have a new surround my neck when
all I want to do is get my computer running again?
So when we spoke about what could I do in that situation, you said Ubuntu.
Okay, so the laptop you're referring to is a Dell Latitude C510, I think.
So what was the installation process like?
The initial installation was very easy.
When we switched over to Ubuntu, I just put in the disk and opened it up and it worked,
and things were fine.
Shortly thereafter, our router actually died.
And that happened, of course, not being familiar with the Ubuntu.
My husband started yelling, is this because of that new thing you put on the computer?
And I went around the house and discovered that no, it's actually the signal wasn't happening.
So we called to our provider of service, and what we found out was that we needed a new
router.
So we got the new router, and then we couldn't connect.
So when we couldn't connect, we started to investigate what was the problem again.
Through reestablishing the connection, we did an upgrade on the Ubuntu.
When we did that, then I had problems because I couldn't get my display.
I had lines all over my screen.
All right, so let's step back.
So you got the new router, and then you couldn't connect to it wirelessly.
Right.
That was the issue.
And so one of the things we tried, we said, well, you're on Ubuntu 9.04, 9.10,
and had come out since the initial install.
So we just said, let's just do an upgrade to 9.10 and see if that results the issue.
So when you did the installation, you had some video card problems or some display issues
or something where the screen was all fuzzy, you couldn't tell what was going on.
Correct.
That was messed up.
At that point, we said, well, 9.10 is not going to do it for us.
What did we do at that point?
What did you do at that point?
Then I backed up and just put the 9.04 back on.
And when I went back to that, then things worked just like they had worked before.
Well, I think what we determined was that Dell Attitude was not compatible with your new
router.
Right.
I had an 802.11b compatible wireless card in it.
And I think your new router was a G or an N, and maybe it didn't support a B.
I think at that point, I had a wireless dungle, a USB dungle laying around the house, and
I just sent it to you in the mail, and you got it, and then what happened?
Then when I put the dungle on, we were able to connect wirelessly again.
Okay, so at that point, at that point, you're back at 9.04, and you can talk wirelessly
although you have to have a dungle sitting out there, but that was okay.
Yeah.
Very good.
You're back up and running on 9.04, you can talk wirelessly to your router and all that
good stuff.
So okay, so since then, you've really had no technical issues with it.
What do you like about it, Bunty?
It's very easy to use.
When things come to us, like when pictures come through email or things that we want to
look at, it's very easy to just download them and view them.
It seems like prior, before we were using new Bunty, we had to install something to open
a picture.
Just seem like we always were going through several steps to do anything, and now, if I
want to access something, I just open it without all those extra steps.
Okay, so it's just ease of use is a big thing.
What else?
How about speed and performance and not having to worry about viruses?
That's not as much.
That's the best right there, not having to worry about viruses.
When young people in the house, they're always, it just seems like we're always at such a
great risk of picking up something from the YouTube or wherever they are floating back
and forth and downloading music and things.
And without that risk of virus, that just gives me a piece of mind that we're not going
to lose everything, how the computer just shut down or blow up on us.
So I do feel good about that.
It's quick.
I don't have a lot of wait time as we use it.
We can navigate from one screen to another screen and ask the computer to do things that
I'm not sitting around waiting for them to download, things that move very quick.
And you're using really an older, underpowered laptop, but it's still doing the job for
you.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
How many other computers do you have in the house?
Two others.
Okay.
And they're running.
What?
Windows.
Okay.
And they're both run at the speed of snail.
Okay.
And most likely they're full of malware or viruses or something right now.
Okay.
So the machine of choice now is the Ubuntu box.
Absolutely.
So is there anything that you don't like about Ubuntu?
The one thing that we've run into is sometimes what we want to send to other people, they
can't open on the other end and I don't know if that's an issue with the other person
or if it's an incompatibility issue.
For instance, we received an email with several pictures on it of tennis equipment that we
were interested in.
So the fellow who sent it said, look at all of these pictures and just send back to me,
the pictures that you want more information on, the tennis bags that you want more information
on.
When we did that, he could never open them.
And I felt like on our end, we were attaching them to the email the correct way, but for
some reason he kept saying, I can't read this program.
What happened with an application, we filled out one time also.
Again, I don't know if that's a problem with him or a problem with the compatibility between
what we were using and how we sent them back to him.
Okay.
Anything else that you don't like about Ubuntu?
No, I really enjoy it.
It's a mind shift from how you did things with the old operating system to the ease of
use with this one.
Sometimes I'm looking for an extra step and it's really just right in front of me.
So I've had to back my thinking down from trying to do two or three steps to open something
or save something to now it just says open or save or move.
It's just not as complicated and I think sometimes I try to make it more complicated.
Do you use Ubuntu full time?
We have one computer that has Ubuntu on it and then two others that run with Windows.
And I just haven't really gotten over there to the other two, but I would like to convert
them.
Okay.
At home do you use open office?
We do.
Okay.
And what do you think about that program?
I like that.
Okay.
Although I have some trouble sending the open office documents to folks again on the other
end.
They struggle being able to open them.
Okay.
So you have some interoperability issues with the Microsoft Office users.
I guess.
Yes.
Okay.
But for my side they are fine.
You know if I'm going to write a letter and print it up that kind of thing it works fine.
Right.
You start sharing it with other people who don't have open office or whatever.
And I think there's a format as you could probably save it as that they would have better
luck opening it up.
We can talk about that offline I guess.
Okay.
So what other open source software are you using that you know of?
Oh I have used Firefox before.
Yeah.
And actually at school they have put Firefox on our machines there.
I'm not sure that they are widespread used simply because I think that the group I'm
with teachers in general Internet Explorer has been around forever.
It's what they're accustomed to and used to.
It's not mandatory that we use Firefox.
So I think people are just said in their ways and they continue to use the Internet Explorer.
But we do have access to it in the public school system and I have used it at home before.
Okay.
So your IT department at school put Firefox out there and that's just a recent development.
Yes.
That's been within like the last six weeks.
Okay.
And the adoption of that hadn't been, hadn't been forced or anything.
It's just on the desktop and people can choose between Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Right.
They do have that choice.
And I've seen, I wonder if we're going that way because on our school website when we
go to access our paychecks which are all done electronically.
There's directions on the page now that say if you're an Internet Explorer user or if
you're using Firefox, you know, there's a different click on a different link there.
Okay.
So they're definitely aware of it and have it available to you.
And does your school district use any other open source software besides Firefox?
That's it.
Okay.
So nobody's using open office.
No.
So what do you think the barriers are to wider adoption of open source software and education?
You know, I'm really not sure.
One thing that is typical of folks in education is we learn something and we know that and
we only work within what we know.
We're so consumed with the education process that we're not folks who step outside of the
box and really look at other options.
If it's working, okay, it's working and we just keep going with it.
I'm encouraged that our technology department sent the Firefox and I think that they may
be opening their eyes some more, but where the link and the tie to explore and the windows,
how high up the chain that goes, I'm really, I don't know how you would break into that.
Right.
My hunch is that they're just aware that Internet Explorer is susceptible to viruses and malware
and stuff like that.
And maybe they're just, they know Firefox is out there and it's, you know, a better product
and they probably just installed it.
It's probably not a big movement to go open source to then sound like.
No, I don't think so.
The education department or the education field as a whole is kind of embedded with Microsoft
and things just continue down the same path, I assume.
Absolutely.
I think we're very concerned with what we do in our classrooms and in our school and
with accountability and we're always searching and reaching and looking for different ways
to reach children better that we don't take the time to think about what would serve
us better.
We really think of things for what are we, what are we doing for others instead of what
could make it easier for us to communicate and share documents rather than just sending
things back and forth email wise.
Right, but really the role of your IT department, I mean, shouldn't they be pushing this stuff
forward or?
Well, I think they should, I think it should be our IT department and not our teachers.
But I don't see it really happening.
At least it's not trickled down to us yet.
Do you know anybody personally in your IT department?
Just one.
Have you ever talked to them about open source software or?
No, I haven't.
Generally, we are communicating on particular issues.
Right, technical issues.
The trauma of the moment.
I can relate to that.
Alright, so I guess we'll just wrap it up here, but to close, have you recommended Ubuntu
to anybody else?
I have.
When we first made the switch over, I was so excited about being able to be online again
and not to have that windows news around me.
So I was on Facebook sharing with my Facebook friends about how we had made a switch to a
new operating system.
And several, a couple people said, oh yeah, tell us all about it.
What are you using?
Because I think in my post they could read my excitement.
So I recommended to them told them, you know, they could check it out online, that sort
of thing.
You know, what I think is that people are so ingrained in using windows because everything
you purchase from the store comes with windows on it.
And for those of us who aren't techies, we just want to get a computer that we can plug
in and it will work.
And because that's so easy, I'm just not sure how the open source is going to break through
that tie that we have to windows because we just want what's going to be very easy.
And it comes that way from the store out of the box.
Your recommendation is that if we want to get Ubuntu or any version of Linux, any Linux
distribution out there and more widely adopted, it's going to be done through installations
on computers whether it be sold at Walmart or Best Buy or Dell or wherever.
If they come preloaded with Linux, that's really the only way we're going to get Linux
more out in the open.
Yeah, the widespread use is going to come from it being preloaded.
I think that was it.
You've hit the nail on the head.
All right.
Well, that about wraps it up.
Is there anything else you want to add before we sign off?
I'm so glad you turned me on to it.
Awesome.
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