[olug] Laptop options.

[Drag Sidious]

On Thu, 2008-01-31 at 17:43 -0600, Dan Linder wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2008 5:21 PM, Dave Thacker <dthacker9 at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> > We've all been is this position, and I know you want your friends to have
> > a
> > trouble free experience.  I'm curious why you ruled out a pre-installed
> > Linux
> > laptop from Dell?
> 
> 
> Wow, nearly 20 hours  and this is the first "Why not Linux?" post! ;-)
> 
> I have been thinking it over a bit, but for this time through I'll have to
> stick with WinXP.
> 
>    - They have a very small set of programs that they run.  They
>    specifically use the Windows AOL client - it isn't very nice or powerful for
>    someone like us, but it suits them just fine.  I'm pretty sure this won't
>    run under Linux natively.
>    - I ruled out using Wine because a lot of the programs they want to
>    run are just not 100% there yet (MS Word and AOL especially).
>    - I'm pretty sure that I could get them up with other FOSS software
>    (Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc), but these folks are the best example of
>    "stuck in a rut".
>       - And it's not just Linux.  That is the same reason I'm sticking
>       with XP, and going to try to resurrect their old MS-Office installation
>       media.
>    - They travels quite a bit (must be nice to be retired!), and a big
>    concern of theirs is getting it working (or getting something new installed)
>    wherever they are at.  I am sure most of the things they would add (webcam
>    and other USB devices) would be fine under Linux, but if they had to send it
>    in for repairs they'd get all worried about being "out of the mainstream".
>    And I especially don't want the tech working on it to say, "Sorry, we don't
>    support Linux..." or some other lame excuse.
> 
> Once they are moved over, I *do* plan on resurrecting their old systems by
> putting Ubuntu on it and configuring it as best I can for their needs.
> Maybe having a "spare" sitting around that *Just works! (tm)* will make them
> a Linux convert after a while.
> 
> Dan
> 

This is a bit tough-in-cheek, but...

Take Ubuntu Linux and slap a XP theme on it and call it 'Service Pack 3'
and I doubt they'd notice the difference. Most people wouldn't.