On 21/05/11 09:40, Alan Pope wrote:
Greetings!My friend had this conversation with her Dad:- Dad: "Can you get in contact with Alan and get him to help me with my computer" Friend: "I'll be honest, he won't touch it with windows on it" Dad: "Okay, will he install Linux on it for me?" Friend: "I'll ask." So I have sat in front of me a laptop computer:- Specs:- Dell Inspiron 6400. Intel Dual Core Pentium T2060 CPU at 1.6GHz 2GiB RAM 60GB Hard disk Intel GMA 945 video card DVD Read/write drive The usual other ports you'd expect, VGA, USBxlots, sound, SD etc. Media playback buttons. I agreed to wipe windows off (he doesn't care about what's on there at the moment) and install Ubuntu. I also agreed to a couple of hours of hand-holding to get him started. As far as I can tell he has no experience of Ubuntu or any other Linux distro. I'm currently backing up the Windows XP hard disk to an external drive he provided, and will start a clean install of Ubuntu later. Wondering what to install. 10.04 LTS or 11.04 with Unity 3D or 2D? I'm open to listen to suggestions for what to do, and what extra apps to install. I figured it might be useful for others. I'm keeping track of stuff in an etherpad document:- http://pad.ubuntu-uk.org/PCForFriend I welcome discussion / suggestions either here on the list or in that document.
I have no hesitation to say to use Ubuntu 10.04.2 (LTS) if it works on that hardware, (probably will). If any hardware that I support have any problesms with the LTS (a few do) then 10.10 seems ok.
The reason for staying with LTS if possible is that there will be a larger ongoing focus of non techie users, and not least because it is easier for me to know what is likely to be installed on the (increasing number of) supported friends, one in France.
11.04 is tempting me for beginners, but I am still getting used to its fluent use for myself as an admin, and dont think I can yet answer questions from beginners with ease. Also it will get more changes I expect.
-- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
