I just had a pleasant phone call with my mother where she basically told me how everything seems so much easier and better with Linux Mint compared to Windows.
I installed it on her Laptop because her Vista install was giving her trouble with WLAN.

She is using Mint for a week by now and is very happy with it. Give me maybe two more years and I will have the entire family converted!

- Wife -> Using Linux since 2010, first Ubuntu 10.4 and now Mint 13
- Sister-in-Law -> Using Mint 13 for about 6 months, and happy
- Mother -> See above
- Brother-in-Law -> Expressed some interest recently, probably the next target
- Parents-in-law -> Still reluctant, but will be easy game when they buy their first Windows 8 PC (hehe)
- Father -> Die-hard Mac User, he is using Mac since the 90ies, this will definitely be the toughest ...

you will find that using the CORRECT and BEST tool is often the BEST policy

and for some people
the mindless "point and click" of MS Windows is the BEST TOOL

or even for an expert
if they NEED to use Autodesk then WINDOWS7 is the best tool
or for a pro editing video then a Mac PRO is the best tool


Linux is NOT the BEST choice for EVERYONE

Agree with what you say, but the all only do email and webbrowsing, plus a small amount of office usage. I wouldn't mindlessly install Linux on someone's computer without checking his needs, and that they can be met...

My main reason for wanting them to convert is that it cuts down the required effort for me to administer their computers significantly. I am just sick of fixing Windows installs...

just make 100% sure that they KNOW that will NOT be able to download in install those "mindless" windows.exe game files

they will not be able to install the "SUPPER DUPER 3d poker- Texas holdem style.exe"
the ones that they are installing and causing you to need to FIX the windows installs

nor will they be able to install 15 "toolbars" in firefox
or that they will need to use firefox and NOT internet explorer

or that that they might have some VERY serious issues with facebook and other sites do to having to use flash 11.2
or that a lot of "flash" based video will start "mute" or NOT have any sound at all

or that they might have to work around not using netflx or MLB

I typically install it as Dualboot. If they are unhappy they can always go back. But as I said in the initial post they are perfectly fine with Linux. My wife is even on single boot - I bought her current laptop without windows on it....

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Status Update:
- Wife -> Still happy
- Sister-in-Law -> Still happy
- Mother -> Still happy
- Brother-in-Law -> Now also converted!
- Parents-in-law -> Now also converted!
- Father -> Won't even try ...

...must look for new targets ;-)

If someone knows what they're doing and saying no, consider leaving it be.
No need to be a linux zealot. Advocating for is ok. Stuffing it down people's throat is not. It can be a grey line

I personally just don't bother learning any MS or MAC stuff. If someone wants my help, they better be using linux. Only thing that makes sense anyways and worth my time.
Not to mention I can fix most things completely through ssh anyways.

Fully agree. This whole thread is only half serious. Each of the "converts" has actively asked me to install linux for them. (Except my wife who just could not care less, as long as whatever i put on her computer does not get in the way.)
The others followed based on my wife's positive feedback...

i became bored with being my parents tech-support (much more challenging when they live in another state:
click on control panel, go to add/remove programs, rite-clik on bonzai-buddy.exe. no rite-clik, no on the mouse, no thats the scroll wheel...)


he bought a new laptop with windows-8 on it and he hated it. i installed fedora-20 on it and we are happy.

There are people who
- need windows because they use programs that are made to run on it.
- like windows.
- don't mind if their computer is aggregating adwares, malwares, rootkits, relays spam through botnets, and takes between 5 and 15 mn to boot on good days.

There are also people who use windows because they think it's a full part of their computer which certainly can't be changed.

For a large part of people in the 2nd category, switching to Linux can prove to be a very positive experience, not to say a huge relief.

I think that anybody who has been involved in tech support for windows users will agree with that.

Whereas it seems openminded of you to note that Linux is not the best choice for everyone, rather than stridently insisting that everyone should use Linux, I feel that calling point-and-click "mindless" is unfair and a little snobbish.

In the first place, many Linux GUIs--in fact all of them I've ever tried--are also point-and-click. Mine (XFCE) is. I've never heard of a GUI that doesn't use a point-and-click interface. No--actually I can think of one if I think all the way back to the 1980s. I used DeskMate on my Tandy 1000, and even though I had a mouse, the Deskmate interface was obviously designed for the keyboard, because mice weren't quite de rigueur on all computers yet.

Second, why is it "mindless"? Many people apparently don't want a selection method that takes more effort than pointing and clicking. I don't find anything particularly mindless about that.

The Unix/Linux foundations are overtly built on principles which include...

* Text - text is the universal data format, everything is text
* Programs as filters - programs should accept text input, perform well defined operations on it and pass text as output
* Pipes - complex operations can be performed by non-tech users simply by piping a series of filters together to acheive the desired result

The very essence of Unix, Linux and structured human thought.

Pointy-clicky interfaces conceal all this wonderful design and power from users and assure that they remain rather oblivious and illiterate - mindless - the M$ legacy...

The fact that you can mimic this mindset on Linux does not make it any more useful.

Real summarized conversation with a M$ user from the past week or two...

I think mindless is a fair term for a large body of such users...

Clicking a brightly colored switch in response to some stimulus is an activity for lab rats.

Intelligent use of tools in combination to accomplish some new task is a more human endeavor.

i find that many (not most) desktop windows users do not upgrade bug fixes at all.

i think the habit of having an oem install makes them think that they shouldnt mess with the default settings.

maybe because linux users tend to be more technology aware that we tend to sudo yum update every few months or so.

I think you're not trying to even understand the perspective of non-Linux users, much less accommodate it. Fortunately many distro makers are more willing to "meet them halfway."

I also used to disdain GUIs, when they were more a Macintosh thing; I mocked Macintosh users for needing a GUI ("How can you read that? Like, it hasn't got any pictures!") and expressed annoyance when Windows copied the Macintosh GUI's principles. Fortunately, I have lost all my former techno-elitist attitude.

My wife's laptop is still Windows, but she uses linux on our desktop, her next laptop probably won't be Windows anymore after she kills her existing laptop (which she will do, she killed her old one a bit over a year ago and that's why she has this one, she drops her laptops far too often).

A good friend of mine I converted his family. Their pc died, so I gave him my old desktop (AMD Athlon-II 640/4 GB/integrated AMD graphics) dual booting Windows 7 HP and Debian, with Debian as the default. He immediately started liking linux, saying how much easier it was to manage, and while his wife at first complained she didn't like it, he said she has recently started using it also as her default.