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Re: [PLUG] Procuring Portable Penguin Power while pinching pennies?
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On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 01:04:20PM -0500, Floyd Johnson wrote:
> Dear PLUGgers,
>
> I'm hoping you find this relevant, and are therefore game for the topic.
Certainly relevant.
> 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.
>
> Historically, I've bought used laptops that at maximum RAM and CPU, barely
> contained Taroon and Dapper, but, counting shipping, never cost me more
> than $300.
>
> 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)?
I set up my mom's desktop with Debian a few years ago. A few things
I've learned along the way:
If you're going with Debian, set her up on the current stable (that
would be "etch" at the moment). Keep it updated to security. When
Lenny reaches stable you can handle the dist-upgrade.
I'd go with Gnome on the desktop. DVDs should show up on the desktop
when put in the slot. Same for plugged-in USB sticks and peripherals.
Set up Flash for Iceweasel, of course, and you might want to point apt
at debian-multimedia to pick up codecs and such for WMVs, etc. If you
have the time to let her use it a bit and set things up in a way that
makes sense to her, that's best.
I'd go for option 1 and get a used Thinkpad off ebay. Something around
$300 ought to do all that's needed. Here's a good example:
http://ln-s.net/1J$X.
Also, I don't know how far away from your mom you live, but the
thousands of miles between my mom and me have made the occasional ssh
fix-it and update session invaluable. You'll have to set up
port-forwarding on the modem and check it for the WAN IP. Luckily, the
not-static IP address my mom's ISP gave her hasn't changed in a couple
years.
gsf
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