Update: Mom's Using Ubuntu with a Non-Ascii Character Set

I spoke to my Mom on Sunday and had a little scare when she told me that she could not write to her family in Iceland because she didn't know how to get at non-ascii (she didn't say non-ascii, that was me) characters. Although I knew it was possible to use a Linux box to not only read, but also write, non-ascii character sets, I had never personally set this up. While I knew I could figure it out, how could I teach my Mom how set this up without flying to New York!

After 30 minutes of Googling around and playing around with my machine I put together the following set of instructions and sent it to her in an e-mail:

1. Go to System >> Administration >> Language Support
   
2. Select Icelandic and check the box in the right hand column
   
3. Select default language as 'English (United States of America)'
   
4. Select 'OK'
   
5. Once that is done, go to System >> Preferences >> Keyboard
   
6. Select the 'Layouts' tab
   
7. Click '+ Add'
   
8. Select 'Icelandic' from the left hand column and click 'OK'
   

I was fully expecting having to walk her through it on the phone. Even if we went through each step on the phone I anticipated we may have run into all sorts of complications.

This evening, I received an email from her saying that with a little help from Dad that they figured it out and she can now write e-mail to her family.

Who says Linux isn't ready for the desktop of the non-super geek?