Two days ago I came in from work and as usual the kids were running about and doing their thing. I went into the living room and my daughter was doing her thing on her laptop browsing the web, YouTube, Myspace, etc... I ask her how her day was and she replied "ehhh..." then out of the blue comes "Daddy can you put Linux back on my computer?". That was a very heartwarming moment. Here's how it all started.
About a year and a half ago I got my daughter her first laptop, which was one of my hand me downs, and I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on it. I did this as more of an experiment seeing that up until this moment she had only used Windows in school and at home. I didn't tell her anything about the operating system nor did I mention that it wasn't Windows. I simply gave her her username and password and she was off to the races. The first few weeks she had some questions, mostly about where to get and how to install software, that I answered and showed her two or three times and never heard from her again. So up until December 2008 she had been plugging away happily on her laptop without a complaint, ever.
Then the inevitable happened and the unit went south and was in need of major servicing. I opted to get her a new laptop for Christmas from Dell and had it purposely shipped with Windows Vista Home Premium. Christmas came and she was thrilled with her new laptop that is until she started using it. The first couple of weeks she complained about performance and constant nagging from the anti-virus, firewall, etc... I told her to go along with it as it was necessary for security as well as to keep the computer as virus, spyware, malware free as possible. Fast forward to two days ago and well my daughter made a CHOICE. A choice that I had absolutely no influence in but one she made based on her own experiences with Windows and Linux. My daughter became a *Nix snob and that was a moment I almost shed a tear. She has seen the promised land and on her own accord relieved her unit of Windows in favor of a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10.
This took almost two years as it was like I said an experiment. In the end though it proves that if given the choice based on experience most users will choose Linux. My daughter is living, breathing proof of this as are millions of other users out there. When I started this I would use what I saw and her experiences as anecdotal proof. Now after her decision to switch back to Linux for better performance, security and features it is no longer anecdotal but absolute proof that Linux is the superior operating system.
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