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I Made My Partner Use Linux for a Week–Here’s How It Went
We decided to use an Acer laptop we had lying around. I wanted to give her as much of the Linux experience as possible, so I guided her through manually partitioning the disk as part of the installation process. She’s used to unboxing a Mac, turning it on, and letting macOS handle the rest. With Linux? Not so much. Right from the start, she was dropped into the deep end. Fortunately, we installed Ubuntu, which is often considered the most accessible Linux distribution for newcomers.
Now, Ubuntu’s installer is easy to use by Linux standards, but it’s still a different world. Terms like "partitioning" and "bootloader" don't show up in the macOS setup assistant. On her Mac, she'd never even thought about disk formatting. Here, she had to make real choices about how her system would function.
Despite my help, her frustration was evident. "Why is this so complicated?" she asked as the installer prompted her about different things. Things macOS silently handles—like ensuring Wi-Fi and Bluetooth just work—required attention.
Ubuntu succeeded in booting and getting her online, but it wasn’t the smooth introduction I’d hoped for. Yet, when it did finally load, she was intrigued. The home screen on the desktop was clean and modern. "This is Linux?" she asked. It wasn’t what she had expected—in a good way.
An update
By Ellsworth Toohey:
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Man bribes girlfriend with cruise vaction to use Linux for a week, relationship somehow survives
As reported in How-To-Geek, some brave/foolish soul convinced his macOS-loving partner to abandon her sleek, functional ecosystem for the digital equivalent of assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded — aka Linux.
The price tag for getting her to go along with this masochistic fantasy? A luxury cruise. Forcing someone to learn terminal commands in exchange for ocean views is a funny way of saying "I love you."
Our heroine faced the Ubuntu installer like a champ, despite it asking more questions than a passive-aggressive mother-in-law. "Why is this so complicated?" she asked, channeling every sane person who's ever attempted to partition a drive.