Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/07/12

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Subject: [Leica] OT: buying a Windows laptop for my son
From: shino at panix.com (Rei Shinozuka)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:14:55 -0400
References: <B71F173C-49E0-408D-935E-2DB1AC57FC35@frozenlight.eu> <F0237067-5B07-4216-8037-50B6BE2DFFA9@droolassicpark.com> <c7c8cf880907112204l6edc9b3cmdc5fd4c7ea4d14da@mail.gmail.com>

i second Ubuntu.  The latest version is 9.4.  it's been my desktop for
years, following years with redhat.

i've got it running on 4-5 machines at home.  
the laptops are thinkpads, dell mini 9, dell inspiron, emachine (i seem
to collect lots of sub $300 notebooks for my kids to use/trash.

ubuntu lets you do many things (all of the below are free):

* web browsing (firefox)
  + with flash (utube)
  + with java
* email (thunderbird)
* interchange of word and spreadsheet documents (openoffice) 
   (so long as they don't have macros)
* adobe ported
* skype ported
* IM (giam, yahoo messenger, etc)
* use music & video formats (vlc)
* photo browsing -- raw formats like DNG & RWL included (digikam)
* watch DVDs (mplayer)
* support for running MS Windows as virtual guest OS (virtualBox)

what it DOESN'T have

* no shockwave plugin (used for web games--my kids complain about this a lot)
* no ports for most PC games (such as sims) though some do run under WINE
* no itunes (the only serious deficiency for me personally)
* no compatibility with some proprietary windows media
* no licenses, registration, fees 

-rei

On Jul11 22:04, Pasvorn Boonmark wrote:
> Charlie,
> 
> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Charlie
> Meyer<charlie at droolassicpark.com> wrote:
> > BTW, anyone have suggestions for which Linux flavor is best for AMD 
> > based laptops?
> 
> I like Ubuntu.  The latest one works very well with wireless and all.
> 
> GenToo is also a good alternative, but I have not used it since I
> switched to Ubuntu.
> 
> -Pasvorn
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information

-- 
Rei Shinozuka shino at panix.com
Ridgewood, New Jersey



In reply to: Message from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] OT: buying a Windows laptop for my son)
Message from charlie at droolassicpark.com (Charlie Meyer) ([Leica] OT: buying a Windows laptop for my son)
Message from pasvorn at boonmark.net (Pasvorn Boonmark) ([Leica] OT: buying a Windows laptop for my son)