a real beginner, Neflix and beyond

Question

My daughter and I have a little Acer Netbook, and use it for all our home schooling needs, from online research, email, writing papers, etc, to down time use watching Neflix, Youtube and FB. Can I use Ubuntu on this mini laptop and still do all the things we are used to doing? I'm nearly a complete computer idiot, so talking OS, DOS (how I originally learned computer,but forgotten, over 25 yrs ago), gigabytes, pixels and Platforms is gibberish to me...my eyes glaze over and I just nod dumbly and walk away with no understanding at all. SO! keep it kindergarten for me.

Answer 1

Everything you mentioned you want to do should work, except Netflix. Sadly, Netflix require some software that is only available for Macintosh and Windows.

However, you can still make Netflix work if you put in a few extra steps. I have listed two different methods known to make Netflix work. Method 1 is the easiest method to use, but using it will require software that might not be a bit laggy. Method 2 can be more convenient and have less lag, although it will take more work in the beginning.

Method 1: Unoffical Netflix app

These is an unofficial app which can be used/installed with only three command lines. Open the terminal (CTRL+Alt+T), and type the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop

Once that is done, you should find a program called Netflix, which can be used to watch Netflix. Easy-peasy.

Method 2: Install Pipelight

I would recommend using Pipelight, which will allow you to use these Windows programs, without actually using Windows. To install Pipelight, make sure you don't have any web browsers open or the Software Center open, and open a terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+T), and run the following three commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pipelight
sudo pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight

When you are asked for a password, the same password you use to log on the the computer should work fine. When you open your web browser, you might get a window saying something about downloading and installing some strange software. This is just the software you installed with the above commands getting some components from the internet. It should finish automatically, at which point you will need to change some browser settings.

If you attempt to watch Netflix at this point, it will tell you to use Windows. You can trick Netflix into thinking you're alread using Windows by using a User Agent Spoofer. To learn more about how to do so, see the bottom of THIS page (you can press control+F and type We're not done yet. Silverlight should be working now, but some websites such as Netflix check the browser user agent to quickly find the part I'm talking about). Once you finish Netlix should work.

Answer 2

It is possible to do all those things. I also have a netbook with Ubuntu 12.04 installed and I do all those things. But, I have to say honestly, there is a bar to cross when you transition over to Ubuntu from Windows.

Depending on the software you use for those tasks now, it is likely that, except for the browser, the applications you use to perform those tasks will be different. Slightly different in many cases but still different.

And, if you look at the extremely well written answer above on how to set up Netflix, you will see that when you try to do many configuration things, you will often need to enter terminal commands, which is quite foreign for many Windows users.

However, it is worth the effort. I would never look back to Windows except for the many legacy games I have collected that I desire to play in the future (and even they are becoming more possible to play on Linux as time passes and as I learn more about the system).