I have an Acer Aspire 3000 laptop (17" screen) which will not, no matter what I do, run Windows on it (not even the default install supplied by the company) ... if anyone is interested, my trials and tribulations with it are at the Petri IT forums.
I have decided to try Kubuntu on it because, firstly many Linux aficionados say it's a better distro & secondly (unlike OpenSUSE) it appears to pick up the system wireless which is effectively what I want it for i.e. a basic portable system.
Hopefully I won't have issues connecting it via the wireless (I found out it probably supported wireless by trying the Live CD) and, to my surprise, it was listed as a non-activated device. I wasn't able to activate it as far as I could tell but I figured that was still a hopeful sign and am installing it as I type in this post ... I mean we're talking here about a laptop that was effectively a doorstop (a useless brick) that, because of Linux, now has a potentially fully useful life ahead of it.
So assuming this works and I can get it running wirelessly (any advice appreciated) I want it to do several things:
The primary user of the system will be my daughter who, seemingly like most kids of her age, uses twitter and MSN, but she's also an aspiring (that could be a joke, geddit?) writer hence the need for office.
So that's what I'm after, a basic portable surfing machine and this PC, though old, will do the trick nicely if I can get the damned thing to work ... currently it's installing with a blank screen so my "hopefulness" may well be misplaced. To be fair it has had several blank screen moments and has come back but this one's the longest yet, and currently it's gone very quiet indeed.
That's about it ... I'll be back I guess if it installs OK
Keke
I have decided to try Kubuntu on it because, firstly many Linux aficionados say it's a better distro & secondly (unlike OpenSUSE) it appears to pick up the system wireless which is effectively what I want it for i.e. a basic portable system.
Hopefully I won't have issues connecting it via the wireless (I found out it probably supported wireless by trying the Live CD) and, to my surprise, it was listed as a non-activated device. I wasn't able to activate it as far as I could tell but I figured that was still a hopeful sign and am installing it as I type in this post ... I mean we're talking here about a laptop that was effectively a doorstop (a useless brick) that, because of Linux, now has a potentially fully useful life ahead of it.
So assuming this works and I can get it running wirelessly (any advice appreciated) I want it to do several things:
- Run office software (shouldn't be an issue as I know KDE has KDE Office ... I kinda like KDE Office because it is similar in look & feel to MS Office so straightaway there's a familiar thing to use)
- Connect to my LG NAS
- Run Tweetdeck (requires Adobe Air): I suspect this can be done because there is a Linux version
- Run a MSN Messenger clone (I believe there's an app called Kopete that does this).
The primary user of the system will be my daughter who, seemingly like most kids of her age, uses twitter and MSN, but she's also an aspiring (that could be a joke, geddit?) writer hence the need for office.
So that's what I'm after, a basic portable surfing machine and this PC, though old, will do the trick nicely if I can get the damned thing to work ... currently it's installing with a blank screen so my "hopefulness" may well be misplaced. To be fair it has had several blank screen moments and has come back but this one's the longest yet, and currently it's gone very quiet indeed.
That's about it ... I'll be back I guess if it installs OK
Keke
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