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Roland Tarver wrote:
Good luck with it all. I've just been over to see well, I guess customer (a friend of a friend) who I provided a PC to for their local charity project. The PC is running Ubuntu and was fine until an update borked the NVidia drivers (they are using a basic 15" LCD TV which doesn't do 1024x768 very well, I believe it's above the panel's native resolution. Rather than mess around with NVidia drivers (which I had the hassle of last time) I installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 1 over the existing Ubuntu install. Luckily I'd created a separate partition for /home, 45 mins or so later they were back up and running again. Now if it was Windows I think I would have been there the best part of the day.On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Paul Sutton <zleap@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Roland Tarver wrote:Hello :-) This is amazingly co-incidental! Recently I have been chatting to an old school friend (Kim). I have not spoken to her in years! Anyhow, she lives near Holsworthy and needs a new laptop because her current one is "smoking" (literally!!!). In addition she is a little strapped for cash at the moment. She was looking into buying a new laptop from a catalogue and paying for it in instalments. :-s. Instead, I suggested she get an older (cheap) laptop and run a Linux. I have already pointed out many of the benefits of Linux, it being free from cost is probably the largest immediate advantage for her. I think she warmed to the idea, but she does NOT have an interest in computers - she just wants it to work (easily without (much) fuss). Her requirements are quite simple:- 1. Wireless internet (facebook) 2. Chatting on web cam on MSN. * 3. Plays a lot of games on bigfish (this is a web site). 4 .Internet shopping * - I do not know of an msn compatible web cam program for Linux. ? NB. No one else will use the laptop.amsn the new version of pidgin, not sure what its called.I was wondering if there were any kind folks in the Holsworthy area that could assist? Does anyone have an older laptop that they could sell to her? (Even, perhaps, install Linux first - asking a lot I know!!!!) Perhaps one could be sourced form the local computer shop? I was thinking of Linux mint as a distro? (I am yet to check its minimum sys. requirements) but would anyone be able to help her out with some of the setup problems or differences from windows that she is, arguably, likely to encounter? I have mentioned the up coming meeting to her. Many thanks Best wishes RolySounds good, the lug has an opportunity to help, in doing so they represent the overall Open source community as knowledgeable and helpful one less windows user in the world is a good thing, one satisfied Linux user is far more important. a good reason i think to encourage regular meetings, in North Devon. Paul - -- Paul Sutton www.zleap.net Ubuntu 10.04 is out soon : Visit www.ubuntu.com for details DCGLUG MEETINGS - Details on www.dcglug.org.uk/ - please click on Group meetings link on right hand side Aged 11 - 19 then dfey may be for you, please goto http://www.dfey.orgHi All, Many thanks to all that replied to this post. I forwarded your advice and Kim was *very* grateful. thank you :-) I think she going hold out for a laptop, although I will stress your suggestions that a really cheap or even free (as Rob mentioned) desktop would be a good interim solution. I will keep you posted as to what she decides to do.
The comment of the day would have to be "Ubuntu is so quick compared to Windows", and it's a modest spec PC - Athlon XP 2000+ (about 1.6GHz IIRC), 512MB Ram and an 80GB hard drive.
Maybe when I have some more time I'd suggest they upgrade their laptop to Ubuntu from XP.
That reminds me, I still haven't sorted out the bit of free Ubuntu promotion with them, considering Ubuntu 10.04 is being released at the end of the month, it might be a great time to get the article in the Herald Express and see if we can get a mention of the possible upcoming install day.
Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html