My grandparents are shortly going to get a laptop for internet surfing and looking at/storing photos from their digital camera (just a simple compact, nothing fancy).
I am (as usual) going to end up in charge of making sure this machine runs smoothly. Since they have very little knowledge of computers and my Grandfather has Altzheimers, the probability of accidental wrong button pressing is quite high.
My theory is that a Puppy frugal install might be just what they need, since it's almost impossible to break it, you just re-boot and everything goes back as it was.
The only problem is they are really not good with computers and while Puppy is actually pretty easy, its looks will scare them.
Bearing in mind that this is going to be a modern laptop on the rich side of 1GB of ram and a 1.5GHz CPU, are there any pupplets out there which make Puppy look nice and friendly and automatic while still allowing a frugal install?
In this case lightweightness and performance can take a back seat to ease of use and invulnrability to careless button pressing.
I have plenty of time to play around and will probably put a number of distros onto VMs on my personal laptop, just looking for somewhere to start.
thanks in advance
Puppy for my Grandma
Advice from the Trenches
As a grandfather myself with a shaky hold on computer awareness, as well, perhaps, on awareness in general, I think something like Puppy 3.0 with a frugal install might be a practical choice. Put just a few icons on the desktop: Seamonkey or Firefox, a viewer, a word processor, maybe Osmo or some other PIM/notetaker. I suggest not using a mail client; set them up with g-mail and make it easy.
Good luck.
Good luck.
thanks for the suggestions.
as to what will scare them, I'm not quite sure, but they (particularly my Grandma) are easily scared by technology. Probably just the fact that it's close to unbreakable will help in this regard. They have a WinXP powered machine at the moment and have managed to break that a couple of times. It's always pretty minor, but enough to need me to put it right.
They don't use the computer very often, I'm hoping that the new machine will be more useful to them, but it needs to be a pretty self explanitory desktop.
I'm currently a bit torn between puppy for sheer unbreakability and a customised Ubuntu like the one described here http://www.knightwise.com/content/view/154/9/ which I should be able to set up so that it basically lacks any wrong buttons to press. Of course there's no real reason I couldn't make a similar desktop environment for Puppy.
I like the idea of Xfce, since it looks a little bit fluffier and less daunting than JWM.
I'm bouncing ideas around in my head at the moment so any input at all, especially "Why are you doing X this way, have you considered Y" is really great.
thanks again
as to what will scare them, I'm not quite sure, but they (particularly my Grandma) are easily scared by technology. Probably just the fact that it's close to unbreakable will help in this regard. They have a WinXP powered machine at the moment and have managed to break that a couple of times. It's always pretty minor, but enough to need me to put it right.
They don't use the computer very often, I'm hoping that the new machine will be more useful to them, but it needs to be a pretty self explanitory desktop.
I'm currently a bit torn between puppy for sheer unbreakability and a customised Ubuntu like the one described here http://www.knightwise.com/content/view/154/9/ which I should be able to set up so that it basically lacks any wrong buttons to press. Of course there's no real reason I couldn't make a similar desktop environment for Puppy.
I like the idea of Xfce, since it looks a little bit fluffier and less daunting than JWM.
I'm bouncing ideas around in my head at the moment so any input at all, especially "Why are you doing X this way, have you considered Y" is really great.
thanks again
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nutts4life
- Posts: 263
- Joined: Fri 15 Feb 2008, 09:52
- Location: UK
mongoose,
This is great news for me as i'm releasing a new puplet tomorrow just for the kind of user you are describing.
The idea of the puplet that it's completely stripped back puppy to provide a very very simple interface for +50 users and technophobes.
It's based on the 2.17 (same kernel as 3.x puppies) Puppy as i especially wanted it to run well on a 128Mb.
Seriously, hold on tight. I will realease it tomorrow on the 'Puppy Derivatives' section of this forum.
It's gonna be called 'Pupeez'.
I think this maybe your answer.
Thanks,
nutts4life.
This is great news for me as i'm releasing a new puplet tomorrow just for the kind of user you are describing.
The idea of the puplet that it's completely stripped back puppy to provide a very very simple interface for +50 users and technophobes.
It's based on the 2.17 (same kernel as 3.x puppies) Puppy as i especially wanted it to run well on a 128Mb.
Seriously, hold on tight. I will realease it tomorrow on the 'Puppy Derivatives' section of this forum.
It's gonna be called 'Pupeez'.
I think this maybe your answer.
Thanks,
nutts4life.
new Puppy for 50-plus?
Well,...I'm over that age,...(just retired) and just now switched from win98se over to Puppy 3.01. I admit that even though I am enjoying "tinkering" around in the friendly little Puppy,....I don't really have much of a CLUE as to what I'm really doing! For instance,....the file system is just 'way beyond me,....can't seem to get downloads to work (did get a nice little card game going 
I'll keep on trying my best to learn, though,.....(can't go back to old M$)....
I'll keep on trying my best to learn, though,.....(can't go back to old M$)....-
Bruce B
mongoose,
also, besides removing &/or renaming desktop icons, it's also very easy to remove items from the menu. So you could have as minimal a menu as you like.
One area that a lot of people seem to have trouble with, using a frugal install, is that everything is saved within the pup_save.2fs file. The easy solution, if you've got the hard disk space, is to symlink save locations to /mnt/home.
Also, before committing to any pupversion, make sure that the camera is recognised properly by gtkam, as this has been a problem in the past.
also, besides removing &/or renaming desktop icons, it's also very easy to remove items from the menu. So you could have as minimal a menu as you like.
One area that a lot of people seem to have trouble with, using a frugal install, is that everything is saved within the pup_save.2fs file. The easy solution, if you've got the hard disk space, is to symlink save locations to /mnt/home.
Also, before committing to any pupversion, make sure that the camera is recognised properly by gtkam, as this has been a problem in the past.
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nutts4life
- Posts: 263
- Joined: Fri 15 Feb 2008, 09:52
- Location: UK
oblivious,
First of all i'd like to make an apology if my reference to age was offending any way.
I use the term '+50' to describe the market, for which, my new distro is aimed at.
It is purely a marketing term and references the higher percentile of users within the age group, who have the following difficulties using computing operating systems:
- Confusion in technical terms.
- Complexity at every level, in applications.
- Unreliability of software.
- Frustration when trying to learn a technique to complete a task.
There is a much lower percentile within this age range which have good understanding of OS's and PC's. It is more than likely that anybody over this age and has these skills would be using this forum and therefore would find this insulting.
I do not wish to be ageist, but i think that by being too concerned by the way we reference this percentage of the population will cause a slow down in adressing the obvious complexities and frustration there is in the OS market.
I would highly recommend that anybody you finds the term '+50' offensive should stop and see what they have acheived against the odds with understanding and taking part in a linux distro.
For me, these times should and will change. It is time that linux moves to being much easier to understand and move and addresses the bigger market.
Do answer Sage's request:
I don't think Bill Gates is using a computer, I think he'd have trouble .......using Windows Vista.
Let's not let language get in the way of harmony
First of all i'd like to make an apology if my reference to age was offending any way.
I use the term '+50' to describe the market, for which, my new distro is aimed at.
It is purely a marketing term and references the higher percentile of users within the age group, who have the following difficulties using computing operating systems:
- Confusion in technical terms.
- Complexity at every level, in applications.
- Unreliability of software.
- Frustration when trying to learn a technique to complete a task.
There is a much lower percentile within this age range which have good understanding of OS's and PC's. It is more than likely that anybody over this age and has these skills would be using this forum and therefore would find this insulting.
I do not wish to be ageist, but i think that by being too concerned by the way we reference this percentage of the population will cause a slow down in adressing the obvious complexities and frustration there is in the OS market.
I would highly recommend that anybody you finds the term '+50' offensive should stop and see what they have acheived against the odds with understanding and taking part in a linux distro.
For me, these times should and will change. It is time that linux moves to being much easier to understand and move and addresses the bigger market.
Do answer Sage's request:
I don't think Bill Gates is using a computer, I think he'd have trouble .......using Windows Vista.
Let's not let language get in the way of harmony
Things are very different in the motherland. One of the biggest groups of PC users are the 'silver surfers'. Retirees have been offered 'free' PC user courses for the last several years (until the new financial pinch bit). Notwithstanding, these are mainly regular users. However, you'll appreciate that, despite the hype, amongst the scientific fraternity, Brits were the first large scale computer users. London Uni had an Atlas (that is, for general use, not R&D) around 1960, I started using a Pegasus in 1964. No doubt about it, the programmable computer was invented here - Colossus - just that it remained on the secret list for the next fifty years. Our military was the first to develop an IC, but I could go to the slammer for disclosing that top secret piece of information! Our entire electronics industry was run into the ground by successive capitalist governments (of both persuasions!) failing to invest, failing to tax adequately and failing to prevent the predators asset stripping it. AEI, ICL, Eliots, Plessey all went to the wall. All our IP was traded by Churchil to the Yanks in exchange for food. That included our jet engine technology (Comet IIB) as well as rocketry when Blue Streak (still the second stage of the Euro lifter) was cancelled and Woomera wound down (next time there's a launch by NASA, ask whether it's powered by German, British or Russian technology!). Twenty years later and a boardroom change finally saw IBM get the message about typewriters.
Now we have a new generation of PC users, but due to Maggie's disastrous reign of terror, especially around education, many of our kids can't spell, can't write good grammar, much less a line of code, and see these machines more as recreational diversions. Binary and assembler skills have been traded for worthless object shifting which leaves the originators utterly unaware of the underlying modus operandi at chip level. But direct taxes are lower - only important highly developed countries pay the proper price to maintain their level of sophistication; even Maggie admitted that governments don't have any money of their own, only taxes.
Fortunately there is still a core level of 50yrs+ designers, engineers and users who have an appreciation of the technology from the ground up. Against impossible odds, these folks try to inculcate and maintain a critical mass of younger students able to carry the torch forward. No wonder newly emerging nations in the sub-continent find themselves pushing at an open door.
In 2010 in GB there will be more pensioners than children. Compare than with our up and coming compatriots. How about Oz?
Now we have a new generation of PC users, but due to Maggie's disastrous reign of terror, especially around education, many of our kids can't spell, can't write good grammar, much less a line of code, and see these machines more as recreational diversions. Binary and assembler skills have been traded for worthless object shifting which leaves the originators utterly unaware of the underlying modus operandi at chip level. But direct taxes are lower - only important highly developed countries pay the proper price to maintain their level of sophistication; even Maggie admitted that governments don't have any money of their own, only taxes.
Fortunately there is still a core level of 50yrs+ designers, engineers and users who have an appreciation of the technology from the ground up. Against impossible odds, these folks try to inculcate and maintain a critical mass of younger students able to carry the torch forward. No wonder newly emerging nations in the sub-continent find themselves pushing at an open door.
In 2010 in GB there will be more pensioners than children. Compare than with our up and coming compatriots. How about Oz?
Nuts4life, I will be very interested to give your puplet a try, I was rather hoping that someone would have made a distro for this purpose already.
I think my grandparents problem is more the fear of breaking the computer than actual inability to use it. Whenever I'm there to (metaphorically) hold their hands and reasure them they are absolutely fine. So really what I want to do is provide them with a system which is as close as possible to unbreakable, not so much to stop them from breaking it (I can always put it back together for them at the end of the day), as to stop them from being afraid of breaking it.
If I can say to my Grandma "here is a computer, it's a little different from your old one but here is how it works. It is much more secure than your old one and is very very hard to break", she wont be afraid of using it and will consequently become better at doing so.
Incidentally I totally agree that age does not enter into this, but I'd aprieciate it if we could keep on topic. You can imagine I'm looking for a distro for my little sister if you like, I'd be looking for a similar product.
I think my grandparents problem is more the fear of breaking the computer than actual inability to use it. Whenever I'm there to (metaphorically) hold their hands and reasure them they are absolutely fine. So really what I want to do is provide them with a system which is as close as possible to unbreakable, not so much to stop them from breaking it (I can always put it back together for them at the end of the day), as to stop them from being afraid of breaking it.
If I can say to my Grandma "here is a computer, it's a little different from your old one but here is how it works. It is much more secure than your old one and is very very hard to break", she wont be afraid of using it and will consequently become better at doing so.
Incidentally I totally agree that age does not enter into this, but I'd aprieciate it if we could keep on topic. You can imagine I'm looking for a distro for my little sister if you like, I'd be looking for a similar product.
You might need to put some effort into figuring out the best solution for the digital camera. Someone mentioned making sure it is compatible with gtkam, but I think most cameras have standard USB mass storage interfaces, or you could use a card reader, so that isn't an issue, however finding a decent image viewer might be. Depending on the camera useage, it can be quite frustrating using most viewers. After a little configuration I've found Xnview the best, except that its feature to use embedded exif thumbnails is broken, so it is horribly slow dealing with photos on a camera. The only things I've got left to try are Xnview (Windows version) or Irfanview, via WINE, or MAPIVI.
Of course it depends on the users and the useage. If someone is patient, or doesn't take many photos, or has an extra high speed card reader or something, there might not be an issue.
Of course it depends on the users and the useage. If someone is patient, or doesn't take many photos, or has an extra high speed card reader or something, there might not be an issue.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here
Classic Puppy quotes
ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER
Classic Puppy quotes
ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER
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nutts4life
- Posts: 263
- Joined: Fri 15 Feb 2008, 09:52
- Location: UK
OK, i've realeased my puplet:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28209
Pupeez version 1.0.
Enjoy!!!!
Oblivious, i just want to carry on our discussion as i think it's important mainly for my understanding. I won't tell you my career, but i've spent the last year studying the aged community and the impact of technology on them.
If you really want alot of research i could fill a forum with documents and experience in showing that this age group were not part of the technical 'expansion', feel lost and confused. Some reject it completely and others feel that they just can't keep up and feel it is now too complex.
I agree that this age group i speak of are probably a little past 50, between 60+. But the research clearly, and i mean clearly, states that by far the large percentile struggle with technology. THAT IS NOT STUPIDITY AND I WOULD NEVER CONSIDER IT AS THAT. I beleive it is failure to consider all aspects of society in technology and i believe this has occured due the uncontrolled expansion and complexity of technology itself.
I'm glad you are not offended by the comment, but i'm hoping that, like me, you see that this is a challenge not a HINDERENCE to technology.
You're right the 14 year old is compariable. WHY? not due to lack of intelligence or experience, but simply becuase the technological world hasn't taught her/him how the system works. It is the fault of technology not of the age group.
In conclusion:
When designing an application / OS. The User Interface and user interactivity is seen as an after thought to those with technical knowledge as it does not affect them. All applications / OS must be built with a interface that allows all age groups to interact.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28209
Pupeez version 1.0.
Enjoy!!!!
Oblivious, i just want to carry on our discussion as i think it's important mainly for my understanding. I won't tell you my career, but i've spent the last year studying the aged community and the impact of technology on them.
If you really want alot of research i could fill a forum with documents and experience in showing that this age group were not part of the technical 'expansion', feel lost and confused. Some reject it completely and others feel that they just can't keep up and feel it is now too complex.
I agree that this age group i speak of are probably a little past 50, between 60+. But the research clearly, and i mean clearly, states that by far the large percentile struggle with technology. THAT IS NOT STUPIDITY AND I WOULD NEVER CONSIDER IT AS THAT. I beleive it is failure to consider all aspects of society in technology and i believe this has occured due the uncontrolled expansion and complexity of technology itself.
I'm glad you are not offended by the comment, but i'm hoping that, like me, you see that this is a challenge not a HINDERENCE to technology.
You're right the 14 year old is compariable. WHY? not due to lack of intelligence or experience, but simply becuase the technological world hasn't taught her/him how the system works. It is the fault of technology not of the age group.
In conclusion:
When designing an application / OS. The User Interface and user interactivity is seen as an after thought to those with technical knowledge as it does not affect them. All applications / OS must be built with a interface that allows all age groups to interact.
Just d/l and burning, now. Later. Caneri's site seems to be up to speed at last!
Must interject that I am not a bit put out by reference to my great age, but I do not appreciate comments like:
I won't even bother to correct the spelling. If you cannot see the relevance of my epistle to the thread, kindly leave the stage. With me, you get the whole package - and it's free!
So far so good. No boot parameters. Not keen on the textual locale input. Up & running. Looks good. First click of Menu returned me to command line - OK second time, though. StaticIP up and running. Had a problem looking for the Browser - it is labelled Web/Mail, which in my haste, I interpreted as Webmail - silly me.
Yes, OK, so far - nice one.
Must interject that I am not a bit put out by reference to my great age, but I do not appreciate comments like:
.but I'd aprieciate it if we could keep on topic.
I won't even bother to correct the spelling. If you cannot see the relevance of my epistle to the thread, kindly leave the stage. With me, you get the whole package - and it's free!
So far so good. No boot parameters. Not keen on the textual locale input. Up & running. Looks good. First click of Menu returned me to command line - OK second time, though. StaticIP up and running. Had a problem looking for the Browser - it is labelled Web/Mail, which in my haste, I interpreted as Webmail - silly me.
Yes, OK, so far - nice one.