Mike Perry wrote:
Hi all,
I visited my parents yesterday and yet again my mother's computer is filled with spyware. Everytime I go there it is slower and slower and odd things keep happening (like icons disappearing ... I've witnessed this myself).
I've been considering trying to get her onto Kubuntu, but I have a few valid concerns. I'm curious if anyone has any experience with the following under Linux (any flavor):
<snip> I prefer to run windows in a VM rather than dual boot. Set up samba, so she can save files to the linux partition, make a backup copy of the VM once you have it all set up, and save it in case (when) the win vm gets trashed - then you just have to replace it with the backup. One thing to watch out for - I've noticed on debian that vmware will often peg the cpu at 100%. I have to stop and start the vmware daemon when this happens. I don't know if it's a problem on ubuntu. For the iPod, try gtkpod. I only have minimal experience with it, so I don't know what issues might come up. Go for it! Trying to get it all running can't be any worse than trying to remove malware or doing a windows install. I have three non-technical friends running linux - they're happy with it, and I have less maintenance to do than if they were running windows. If you're going to go with a new hard drive as others suggested, you might consider leaving the old drive in. If you set up the win drive as hdb (and play tricks with grub so windows thinks that it's first), then you have less to do if you decide to pull out the windows drive. Greg