thelinuxlink.net

I recently (1.5 weeks ago) had a chance to repair a home PC (circa late 2001, 1.6Ghz amd, 256MB pc 133 SDRAM, 80GB HDD) for a family friend. They had next to no experience w/windows (machine was in mothballs for most of the time).

There was massive corruption to the windows XP install (whistler according to the boot files ), that I traced back to a bad memory module.

There was a massive malware infestation on this system (apparently a late-teens boy who was a "computer guy" used this last... can anyone say "PR0N dialers" with me?).

I installed Kubuntu 6.06 LTS on it (original winxp media was missing, now found).

The woman of the house wanted to use it for POGO.COM and video-IMing w/her new grandchild. The man of the house wanted scottstrade.com.

The college-age daughter of the house wanted all sorts of random things.. MYSPACE, play music, etc.

Simple stuff like that.

I sold them on linux mostly due to the low maintenance. I will be doing a follow-up in a few days with them.. any suggestions?

Did you activate the multiverse or back ports for adept?

I installed Kubuntu Dapper drake when it first came out and I have never been happier. I have had no problems whatsoever. Google earth works awsome, Xine, Kaffeine and GXine works great for viewing video clips on web sites.

Kubuntu makes it very easy to install other debian programmes not found in adept. (like opera 9)

I think Kubuntu is one of ther easier distros to use. I think your friends should be quite pleased with Kubuntu.

Yes, I have edited the sources.list file to support uni/multiverse. (hey, their machine.. their choice in software)
EDIT: not backports.. I'll think about it. Perhaps I'll discuss the pros and cons w/them.

Besides, the impressive list of software in those repos should keep them happy for quite some time.

I thought about installing klik:// , but wasn't sure if that would be a problem (90% of klik software is debian, so the help is minimal.. and can lead to problems.. maybe.) I use klik on my machine from time-to-time.

Our loose agreement is that I'll help w/anything I can, but only guarantee what *I* did to their system, but I do want them to be happy.

no1important wrote:...Google earth works awsome,..

I finally tried that out using both klik and googles installer, both run great. I _really_should_ show them.
(EDIT: I did use it years ago when it was called keyhole (google bought it), it was great then too)

The only prob is they have _no_ 3D excel under linux (oddball matrox pci card).

PS: their system: 1.6 GHZ AMD (XP?), 256 MB-100mhz-sdram (128x2), 80G HDD, Matrox pci video, S3 (savage?) on-board video (shared memory) (unused)

PS: another thing:

I was hoping to give them one of my spare memory modules.. but their system is sdram.

I have a 128 MB, ddr pc266, and a 256 MB, same speed.

These are FREE (as in beer) for anyone in need who is able to show up at my door and ask (location: blaine, mn, usa). I upgraded my pc's ram about a year ago.. these are the old ones.. sitting in my desk... looking for a good home.