[Nottingham] Linux in Church Office anxiety state

[Michael Leuty]

On Sunday 05 Sep 2004 21:15, Michael Leuty wrote:
> My cunning plan is to set just one machine up as
> dual boot in the first place, so the staff can try out the desktop
> and see that the new software will (I hope) be easy to use and do the
> things which they need.

Things have not gone according to plan (do they ever), but so far so 
good. Yesterday I backed up the data on the test machine (copied onto a 
Win98 PC on the network) and used Partition Magic to free-up some space 
on the hard disk. This fouled up, and I lacked the skill (or necessary 
disks) to rescue or reinstall the Windows setup. So I ploughed on, and 
installed Fedora Core 2 on the entire hard disk. The process took ages, 
and I had particular difficulty getting Samba working (due to my 
ignorance) in order to transfer the data back again. By the time I had 
finished the staff had gone home.

This was definitely not the way to do it. I had left a Linux-only PC 
without even working email, just OpenOffice and an attached printer. I 
was unable to go in this morning to show the staff how it worked. I 
just had a brief word with one of them on the phone, and said I would 
ring again this evening to find out how they had got on. I said that if 
they really didn't like it I would go back in tomorrow morning and 
reinstall Windows.

Lo and behold, this evening I rang and was told that although the 
secretary who uses that machine was very suspicious at first, she 
actually likes it and finds that she can use it. She has a few 
questions to ask me, but basically is happy to carry on using Linux.

Which I think must say a lot for the user-friendliness of Gnome. Mr 
Ogley will not be too surprised, I imagine.

Let's hope I can answer all the questions!

(I hope you don't mind me reporting the progress of the project on this 
list. It's not very techy, but it does describe a genuine attempt to 
get Linux into wider use.)

-- 
Michael Leuty
Nottingham, UK