Linux conversion: Vicky

Vicky brought her Petri dish, I mean Windows XP box to my place because it had been running very, very slow, she had notifications telling her to buy anti-spyware software, and she couldn't do anything on the internet.

She had one of the worst virus and spyware infestations I had seen in a very long time. It was really indescribably bad.

We talked about it and, after a diligent try of restoring her box to a decent state (to no avail), she decided to go with Linux. She was fed up with Windows XP because, as many users do, she just wanted to browse the internet, chat, write documents and play games.

I used the Ubuntu 7.10 live cd to boot the computer, mounted her Windows partition, plugged in my USB hard drive, and copied all of her files over to the drive. I then proceeded to install Ubuntu, using the entire disk.

After installing Ubuntu and rebooting, I noticed the computer was very, very fast, and everything worked without configuration. Who said Linux was hard to use? I really recommend a previous Windows user try Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu. Kubuntu is probably suited to a more advanced Windows user.

I copied the files back over, removed the viruses on her backed up data after explaining how useless they were on Linux and showed her how to use it. I also did the first round of updates.

I gave her the CD, told her she could share it with anyone she wanted to legally. This was just this weekend so I'm hoping everything works out!