| Matthew Rosewarne on 13 Dec 2007 20:11:22 -0000 |
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On Thursday 13 December 2007, Floyd Johnson wrote: > My goal is to acquire a laptop for my mum within a year. She has > suggested that, despite having saddled herself with AOL, she'd be > willing to learn to use a Linux machine, provided it can be configured > to make up for her poor eyesight and provide Internet multimedia so as > to catch the TV shows she missed via the broadcast networks' servers. I'm not sure what you mean by "internet multimedia". Would that be youtube and similar sites? Otherwise, be prepared with the lack of "simple" TV apps on Linux. Unless you're willing to set up something like Myth, there isn't anything I can think of off-hand that not only can record TV but also has a decent GUI. For those with less-than-stellar vision, KDE and GNOME both provide high-contrast themes. Default fonts should also be embiggened, of course. > The question is whether to, for my mum's proposed rig, (1) look for a > high-caliber used laptop, praying for Moore's Law to work in my favor > -the "Internet hoopty" strategy (2) hunt up a firm that specializes in > "Tux-tops" and/or blank notebooks, or (3) find parts from various places > and build the crate myself (digital gearheading)? Well, the thing I'd be most vigilant about would be making sure the machine has Intel graphics, which have well-supported Free drivers. Wireless cards are also Linux land mines, it would seem, so go with one that is well-supported. If I were really concerned about making it work, I'd go for option 2. Otherwise, you can look at what machines those companies prefer, and try to find one yourself. Of course, buying from a Linux-focused supplier has the nice effect of helping them to continue doing what they do. I would strongly NOT recommend trying to build your own laptop. The result is the the most part guaranteed to be inferior to (and likely more expensive than) any manufactured laptop. As usual, I recommend Thinkpads, and I recommend you take a look at the ThinkWiki (thinkwiki.org), which has been invaluable to me. Attachment:
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