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strictlyplaid · Sep 4, 2005, 07:57 PM

I know this is a Mac forum and all, but since you're all pretty handy with computers, and technically OS X is an implementation of *nix...

I've got some really, really old PCs (think 800 Mhz Pentium III, 128 or 256 MB of RAM) in a small computer lab that I administer, and I'm wondering whether it's worth it to install Linspire on them. As you may be aware, Linspire is giving away free downloads/licenses to Linspire until Sept. 6th, so this would be free for me to do other than time and trouble.

I'd put them into the offices of graduate students who can't afford anything better. They'd be used primarily to surf the web, edit Office documents (.doc and .xls), check e-mail, and instant message. I also have an implementation of the open-source statistical computing environment R that I might throw on there.

The questions:

(1) Is installing this Linux distro easy? This would be my first time doing basically anything with Linux at all.

(2) Would it run well despite the crappiness of the machines?

(3) Would users find it easy to work with? I don't want to create more problems than I solve.

Thanks in advance!

His Dudeness · Sep 4, 2005, 08:08 PM

I'd stick with either Debian or Ubuntu. I had Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron and it was GREAT.

Tesseract · Sep 4, 2005, 08:21 PM

Never tried Ubuntu. Most of my Linux experience is with Debian which was nice, but it isn't the easiest to set up and maintain for a newbie (though it's not extraordinarily difficult either).

I have also used SuSE some and it's a great distro, esp. for the beginner. Very easy graphical setup and maintenance. I recommend it.

Albert Pujols · Sep 4, 2005, 08:21 PM

get Ubuntu.. its really easy to use, even for a noob like me.

His Dudeness · Sep 5, 2005, 05:33 AM

I can't remember what the newest version of Ubuntu is, 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog, I think. I haven't tried it, but it's based on Debian Sid 3.0 or something like that. Very easy installer. I actually learned more about computers in the small time I had Ubuntu than I did by using Windows for years.

strictlyplaid · Sep 5, 2005, 06:31 PM

Update:

So I installed Linspire on my Home PC today, a Dell Dimension 8250 with a Dell SoundBlaster Live! card, just to see what this would be like. To make a long story short, everything was great -- EXCEPT the sound was all messed up. I can choose between: system notification sounds work and Realplayer 10's sound doesn't, or sys notification sounds DON'T work and Realplayer has working (but choppy) sound. I have heard that this could be an issue related to my sound card, but it's annoying nonetheless. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the ease of install and use (I'm typing from it now) and hope to try it on the lab PCs at work tomorrow.

I haven't been adventurous enough to try other distros yet... maybe down the road.

The Godfather · Sep 5, 2005, 06:51 PM

Originally Posted by strictlyplaid

I'd put them into the offices of graduate students who can't afford anything better. They'd be used primarily to surf the web, edit Office documents (.doc and .xls), check e-mail, and instant message.

What kind of graduate students are you talking about here? As a former EE graduate student myself, I'd rather have a Linux version with the most support: Fedora. Most open source applications have been checked with Fedora. I think it is also really unfair to make them use Linspire, because they you think they can't afford anything, and mainly because you want to see what happens next.

You can get Windows 2000 licenses on eBay for US$40.

dampeoples · Sep 5, 2005, 07:51 PM

So why would you install linux on something that would work perfectly fine for surfing the web and editing office documents?

strictlyplaid · 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by The Godfather

What kind of graduate students are you talking about here? As a former EE graduate student myself, I'd rather have a Linux version with the most support: Fedora.

Political science.

The setup has to be pretty much 100% foolproof and turnkey for me to get them to accept anything but Windows XP.

Originally Posted by The Godfather

I think it is also really unfair to make them use Linspire, because they you think they can't afford anything, and mainly because you want to see what happens next.

I'm a graduate student myself, and my budget for private office machines for graduate students is <cash register noise!> zero dollars. We have very modern and fully-loaded-out Win XP machines in our Grad Student lab that are there us to use; these machines are strictly so that students can have the convenience of a private e-mail/web/statistics station in their office if I can swing it. These machines are old professor computers and/or outdated ex-lab machines that are headed out the door unless I can make some valuable use of them. So as you can see, I'm not a stingy sysadmin running experiments on my hapless charges; rather, I'm trying to make students' lives a little bit easier on a very shoestring budget.

strictlyplaid · 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by dampeoples

So why would you install linux on something that would work perfectly fine for surfing the web and editing office documents?

XP slows the machines down too much. The problem is compounded when the machines are inevitably infected with spyware and viruses. I probably could dig up Win98 or Win2k somewhere, probably, but 98 is more trouble than it's worth and Win2k might still be too slow -- and there's still the malware/virus threat. I can't emphasize that enough -- these machines are overrun very quickly on windows, and since I'm just a grad student getting a little extra cash to take care of our computer lab part-time (not a full time sysadmit) I can't really spend time fixing them. (It's actually not part of my job responsibilties.)

So, what I needed was a maintenance-free (or once-per-year maintenance, anyway) system that would simply provide grad students with computing functions in their private offices using leftover, fairly outdated computers we had lying around. I figured installing a simple Linux distro would eliminate the virus/malware threat entirely without need for resource-hogging anti-virus apps and would speed up the old systems to a usable rate.

dampeoples · Sep 5, 2005, 08:13 PM

You'll never get rid of supporting them, especially with others using the systems.

The Godfather · Sep 5, 2005, 08:58 PM

From the Flash demo I saw, it looks like Linspire is pretty optimized for consumers.

Just make sure beforehand that it runs fast on those computers, or else you will have to fall back to Win2k, which should run fine on those.

strictlyplaid · Sep 5, 2005, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by The Godfather

From the Flash demo I saw, it looks like Linspire is pretty optimized for consumers.

Just make sure beforehand that it runs fast on those computers, or else you will have to fall back to Win2k, which should run fine on those.

Yup, gonna try it tomorrow. I'll only turn 'em loose if there are no hardware conflicts and all the software works great right off the install. I fought with a sound problem on my home install for a while tonight, and I'm not doing that at work.

strictlyplaid · Sep 7, 2005, 09:46 AM

Update: Linspire worked so flawlessly on the PC I installed it on at work that I was emboldened to try Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE instead of Gnome.) Not only did it fix the sound problem on my home PC, but it's 99% as user-friendly as Linspire! I'm hooked. My only complaint is that, though the GUI is stunning and much better than Windows in some ways, in other ways it looks a little "rougher" - I'm sure I'll work these config preference issues out over time by changing settings. (I guess this is a reason to buy Apples...

)

So now, I'm using Kubuntu installs at work to avoid any potential licensing issues with Linspire. Sweet!!