You wife CAN NOT use Linux.
Sorry. It's just not a consumer OS, and I don't care how many geeks posting on this thread claim that it is. It isn't. Not even the lexicon of Linux is suitable for casual users. As someone else said: it's by geeks, it's for geeks, and even the most friendly distros available are way beyond the capability of most people who don't work with computers for a living. In contrast those who simply use computers as tools to get work done -- in my experience with many, many customers -- simply cannot use Linux.
I know I will be flamed by the Linux partisans for saying this. I use Linux myself, and understand their loyalty. However, they arent' doing you any favors by recommending this, so let me give you just one simple example to convince you this is a bad move.
You just bought your wife a new laptop and want to play a movie in the Blu Ray disc player on the laptop. Here's what you do in Windows: insert the Blu Ray disc, and it plays. Here's what you do in Linux: First, install VLC. Here are some instructions from the software developer. Tell me if they make any sense to you: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html.
Now insert the Blu Ray disc. Doh! it doesn't play. That's because you also need to install decoding keys and libraries. You won't know this until you Google "Videolan / VLC Blu Ray" Good luck with that.
Eventually, you will figure out that you need to head over here: http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ Does anything on either of those two webpages make the least bit of sense to you? If it does, go right ahead and install linux.
Otherwise, stick with a consumer OS: Windows or OSX. Those are the choices.
Well said, though i would like to see MS face better competition from Linux, while the ability to easily customize Windows via 3rd party apps without learning DOS type commands has always been a real strength.
I do find uses for Linux, and just gave an old PC away running the latest Puppy, which is very fast, but you cannot even right click on an icon in the Start menu and make a shortcut or find its target.However, for just using the Internet to do homework and word processing it should be fine.Thank God for Firefox and OpenOffice (or Libre)
But besides the learning curve, which often means one has to learn coding, there are dozens of distros and some real differences btwn them, and what you might have to go thru to get a printer to work, plus the illegal codecs necessary for full media capability, etc. etc. (just read Linux forums), should temper the “Desktop ready” crowd.
I expect Google is working on its own version of Linux, which has MS worried, as then you could see a real challenge as they focus on one flavor with the resources to improve and promote it. As it is though, i do not even use Chrome, as for me it lacks the ability of Firefox with extensions (Chrome cannot even do multiple row tabs).
But i thank God for the variety and freedom to choose. If only they were all used for good according to His “OS.”
The trouble with computer geeks is they think everyone else is a computer geek. My wife checks her yahoo email and facebook. That’s all she does. I set her up with Windows XP but she could probably run Windows 98 and not know the difference.