 So I have been pondering a question for a little while now and that question is, what are the consequences to installing Linux on a family member's PC? Now, you're probably wondering, Matt, what do you mean by consequences? Because it's definitely not something that you would really think, I mean, it's not like you're going to go to jail or something like that. That's a consequence. But when I think about people installing Linux for other people, there are consequences to that action. The level of consequences that we're talking about obviously will vary, but there are ramifications, if you will, to that decision. So the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because Linux has become more popular and as there are more fanboys of Linux, which there are, those fanboys usually want to tell other people about the fact that Linux is awesome or they want to bring in more and more people into the Linux sphere. And that's perfectly fine. That's one of the reasons why I made this Linux channel, right? The problem is that when that interest in involving other people in Linux goes too far and those fanboys don't really take into account the consequences of their actions. Now, I keep saying consequences and it makes it sound really severe, like jail severe, but that's not really, maybe consequences isn't even really the right word. What I'm really talking about is ramification, repercussions, perhaps, things that kind of flow from that decision. So let's talk about that today. Talk about the consequences of installing Linux on your mom's PC. Let's talk about that. But before we do, if you could be so kind as to leave a thumbs up on this video, I'd really appreciate it. It really does help the channel. So let's just say you've decided to install Ubuntu on your mom's laptop. It's a fairly reasonable thing to do if you're a Linux fan because you probably hate Windows. Now, I know that's a generalization that not every Linux fan hates Windows, but a lot of us really don't like to provide technical support to people who use Windows. And it just makes it our lives easier to install Linux on it because we're more familiar with it and it's easier to service. And the reason why all of this is really important is because of that fact. A lot of us are the tech support for our parents, our family, you know, our friends, you know, we're the nerds of our surrounding ecosystem. And we're the ones that are kind of called upon to discover when something goes wrong. As a Linux fan, having to go and help somebody who uses Windows 11 is oftentimes quite painful. So the urge to take Linux, which you know and love and tinker with on a daily basis and put it on someone else's computer is pretty strong. I've done it. I know a lot of people have done it. The question then becomes, though, what are the ramifications of that action? And there are many of them. But first of all, whether you are a diehard Linux fan who says Linux can do no wrong or you're the more realistic type of fan who understands that Linux is a complicated system just like Windows is and requires some knowledge and, you know, willpower to actually use and all this stuff, no matter where you are on that spectrum. You have to admit that people who have never used Linux before are not going to have a great experience if they aren't interested in learning how to use it, right? So that's the first barrier to entry when it comes to Linux in general, but also for when you shove Linux onto someone else's computer, perhaps even without their knowledge. So if you are going to install Linux on your mom's PC, the first step is to ensure that she knows that you're going to do it. That's the first step, obviously. But also you have to understand that there is going to be an investment in time on your part in teaching her how to do Linux. Now, that's one of the reasons why on this channel and on many other Linux channels, we talk about the new friendly distro so often because those new friendly distros not only are better for new users, but also because they're easier for us nerds to explain to other people when it comes to actually, you know, updating the system, installing applications, rebooting. The simplest of actions need to be explained when someone uses something new. So the easier the distro is to explain, the easier it is for us to provide technical support hopefully over the phone without actually having to travel the mileage to go explain to them precisely what's going on. So that's the reason why we talk about new users distros so often. So that's the first consequence and really it's the biggest consequence of installing Linux on someone else's PC. The investment of time isn't just on their end. It's going to be on yours too because as you're the one that installed Linux for them, you are taking responsibility, at least in part, to teach them how to use it. Otherwise, you're just handing them a very expensive paperweight, especially if they're not interested in learning it on their own, which probably they're not given that again, you're the one installing Linux, not them. Most people who install Linux themselves have that urge to learn something new. People who have installed for them probably don't. So that investment of time is something that you're going to have to be aware of if you've chosen to install Linux for someone else. And again, I say it's probably the biggest ramification of actually doing that. So that's the first one. The second one and this actually probably comes before that time investment is that you have to be aware of their hardware situation, right? So if you are someone who has constantly provided tech support for that particular piece of hardware, you're going to be able to breeze right through this. But if you aren't, let's just say you're installing Linux for someone who is a little bit farther away that you don't really see all that often, but you provide occasional over-the-phone tech support to whatever the situation. You're just not as familiar with that hardware situation. If you install Linux on it and then you teach them the basics or whatever and they can connect to the internet, they've downloaded most of their applications that they need or whatever. And then you go back to your own little corner of the world and they start experiencing hardware problems because you didn't properly install the right driver or perhaps the internet has stopped working or something. You know, there's some kind of hardware problem has occurred because Linux is not interacting well with the hardware. Well, that becomes your responsibility. And also it starts to put a strain on your relationship with that person, right? And it's the same as the first one. If you hand someone a Linux laptop and tell them, hey, this is your new laptop, go forth and learn it on your own and they don't like Linux or they're not interested in learning it or whatever. It can put some strain on the relationships between your friends and family in that situation. It's not always, you know, it's not always as grim as I make it seem, but it can cause some strife between your family friends if you're not willing to put in the effort for them, which would normally be their effort, right? So you need to make sure when you're installing Linux on someone else's PC that you know that the distro that you're installing is actually going to work long term on their machine without you having to constantly tunnel into their network and fixing it remotely or traveling however far it is to actually go fix it. You want to have that thing be as stable as possible. So it does require before you install Linux on that person's PC to do some research over, you know, what distro is going to be best for them and their hardware situations. So the next one that I want to talk about is that chances are if you're working on converting your whole family to Linux, you're going to fail somewhere along the line. There's going to be that one person who just does not want to switch to Linux no matter what. Even by trickery, you can't get them to use Linux at all. They just do not want to switch away from Windows because that's what they're familiar with. There's a lot of people like that and there's really nothing wrong with it. But it does mean that you're going to be dealing with a situation where you're going to have to provide technical support to a mixed-use household, right? Some people are using Windows, some people are using Linux. It makes the backup situation interesting if you're in charge of that. So there's a plan that needs to go into place. If you're going to deal with being the tech support for your family and want to convert some of them over to Linux, you have to plan for that mixed-use household. How you're going to deal with backups, how you're going to deal with updating. If you're going to teach them how to do updates on their own, you know, you're going to have to deal with... If they're anything like my parents, they ask each other how to do things. And my dad uses Ubuntu, my mom uses Windows. And if, you know, one of them asks the other how to do an update or how to shut down their computer, whatever, obviously those two things are not compatible. So they can't really tell each other how to do things. So it's kind of relying on me to make sure that they are aware that they're using two different things and can't rely on each other to be able to, you know, have that support. They have to contact me and that, again, is a burden on me. But again, I say burden. Really, what I mean is it's my responsibility as their son and as their technical support to provide that when I've made the decision to move one of them to Linux, right? If they're both on Windows, it'd be much easier because if one didn't know how to do something, it'd be easier to ask the other person because the situation is the same. Whereas because they're kind of mixed, you know, it's just not something that's easy to cross-patch, right? So that is the next one. So the last one that I wanted to talk about is the power of explanation. Now, this is one hard to explain, which is ironic. But what I'm talking about here is that when you're trying to convince someone to use Linux, if they don't know what it is, you have to have the power of explanation over how to actually explain this thing. You have to be able to tell them exactly what Linux is, why it's good, why they should use it. Now, us Linux nerds tend to be very obsessed with the free and open source part of Linux, right? We all love the fact that Linux is free, not only is it in beer, but also is in Libre. We all love that fact. We all love that it's open and that you can view the code and you can do whatever you want with it. We all love that. Well, maybe the Red Hat guys don't like it so much, but whatever. Too soon? Maybe. I don't know. But the point is, is that we all love that fact. It's one of the reasons why a lot of us use Linux. But the thing is, is that your mama don't give a damn. I'm just going to put that out there right now that she don't care that it's open source. Okay. She doesn't know what open source means. Probably. I mean, I'm sure there are some people's mothers who know what open source is, but the vast majority of them either don't know what it is or don't know and don't care or some combination thereof. They just don't care. So explaining to someone that you want to use Linux that it's free and open source and that just makes it a wonderful thing. That's not the best argument to use, right? You have to have more impactful arguments if you're going to try to get them to make that move. Things like being able to update whenever you want. Okay. Being able to not have to restart your computer. Or I should say not being forced to restart your computer like Windows does. Maybe you can bring in the privacy aspect of it, but again, not a lot of people care about privacy, or at least they don't care as much as they should. So maybe that's not the best argument. There has to be some kind of user facing argument that you bring to them say, Hey, this is the reason why Linux is good and why you should use it over what you're doing right now. There are many of them. So one of them is that they could use their hardware longer, right? We've talked about this before. Linux tends to work very well on old hardware. So you can tell them you can save some money by using Linux. Everyone likes to save money and Linux is a good way to do so, right? It's one of those kind of pillars of actual real world benefits to using Linux. You can use your hardware longer on Linux for the most part, usually. Another argument that you possibly could use is that it makes it easier for you to provide them support. If you are a Linux user, you could tell them this is something that I use that I'm most familiar with and it's hard for me to provide support for Windows when I don't use it. So if you use the same thing that I use, it makes it easier for me to provide support. It's maybe not the best argument ever, but it's one that you could use. The whole idea here is that you have to be able to explain to them not only why they should use Linux, but once you've convinced them to use Linux, you have to explain to them how it works and how their workflow is going to be able to conform to the way Linux does things. And that responsibility from beginning to end lies on you if you're the one that wants them to convert to Linux, right? That responsibility is yours. And removing yourself away from that responsibility anywhere along that line, anywhere along any of the things that we've talked about is going to cause you some issues. If you're not prepared to provide them technical support after you've made the conversion, if you're not willing to provide that explanation over how to do things, you know, either remotely or in person, if you're not willing to ensure that their hardware situation is proper for the distro that you've chosen and that they can play their games, if they play games or whatever, they can do all the things that they want to do, if you're not willing to do that, here's the thing. Don't let them use Linux. Don't put Linux on their computer. Don't put Linux on your mom's computer if you're not willing to take the responsibility for it being there. Now, it's 100% possible that you can, over time, teach your family and friends to use Linux on their own and that responsibility on your end becomes less and less. They'll become more familiar with Linux. They'll learn how to update. They'll learn how to install new applications. Maybe they'll even learn how to distro hop, right? The possibilities there are endless, but at the beginning of the journey, that responsibility is all yours and if you shirk that responsibility, then you're going to experience a lot of problems because you're going to be getting calls after calls. You know, if you put Linux on someone's laptop and then just walked away, you know, you're going to be getting some calls and saying, hey, you know, how do I search in the file manager? How do I use the file picker? How do I have icons on the desktop if you've installed Fedora, right? If you've installed Fedora on someone's laptop and they want icons on the desktop, you got to explain how to do that, right? So there is that responsibility that is so important that you have to take on to yourself if you're going to put Linux on your family member's PCs and that is why it's so important that you kind of keep all that in mind because there are, as I said at the beginning, consequences for doing so and you just have to know that going in. So that is it for this video. If you have thoughts on this whole thing, you can leave those in the comment section below. If you haven't already, leave a like on this video. I'd really appreciate it. It really does help the channel. You can follow me on Mastodon or Odyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linuxcast. Links for YouTube and PayPal will be in the video description if you want to support me there. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube because they're all absolutely amazing. Without you, the challenges would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very, very much for your support. I truly do appreciate it. You guys are all, seriously, thank you so very, very much for your support. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.