Gary's Laptop

Hmm.... it is several weeks ago that my cousin Gary brought over his laptop. He had not used it in quite a while and he complained that it kept shutting down a few moments after he tried to boot in. Gary is a good handy man, but not so tech savvy.

He was afraid that it might be toast because the charger was hot to the touch. I was busy with other things so I said, "Just leave it with me and I'll see what I can find out."

I left the laptop plugged in with the charger for the next hours and then even through the night. When I tried to login I had no problem. My guess was that the battery was totally drained, and needed a full-charge.

When he came by again I asked if I should update his Windows system, which I had installed a few years ago. No, he figured I could get rid of that and put something else on.

Ah-ha! I had been researching some newer linux operating systems but had not had time to try them out yet. I took time to burn some DVDs with a few of those systems, but there were hiccups. So I had to try over and over again. In a few hours here and a few hours there.

Ubuntu is highly recommended to those brand new to Linux systems. I got the latest version to work after a couple of tries. A smaller system called CuteFishOS looked interesting from what I'd seen online so I decided to try it too. Turned out it was a smaller version of Ubuntu but it had such lovely background colours of pastel blues and pinks and green. So I decided it could stay on a small partition of about 50 GB.

But since I have used openSuse's LEAP 15.3 for a number of years, it occurred to me that if Gary called from to say he was stuck at some point, it would be best if he could describe what he was seeing and I would quickly know how to advise him. Only LEAP didn't want to install right away. A few times it tried, but then declared a "failure" when I that it was about done.

I had run out of DVDs so I had popped into a small computer supply store about 2 blocks east of me, and the man there found some in a bag hanging on the wall behind him. I was not very impressed but when he came down in price twice, I gave in a bought some. Big mistake. Everything I downloaded and burned to those discs failed.

So last week I went to Best Buy and bought the last stack of 50 blank DVDs they had. I got a good burn of the LEAP 15.3 on the first try. So I installed it last week Friday, did some fine-tuning on Sat. night and some more on Sunday.

So yesterday I called Gary and said "Your laptop is ready!" But I wanted him to stick around for a bit so I could explain how he could login to 3 different operating systems and how some parts are similar and some have their own personalities.

I gave him paper and a pen to make some notes, but I don't think he understands yet how important it is. Well, he got a glimpse when he asked to go to a government website to check on the status of his Unemployment insurance. On the phone they just kept telling him to check it online. Well, I'd help him open an account there last week, - but he has forgotten his password, and his Account number.

Gary left at noon, determined to ask for his account number again. But I suspect he may be back soon. It takes a lot of humility and patience to learn the way around computers and online interactions.

(I had no one to ask except the Lord, when I was learning way back in my Hague days).

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