New-to-you laptop: best for churches or non-profits, part 1
I sent the following note to technology and religion blogger Michelle Murrain two days ago, and post it here with her permission.
Michelle –
I have an idea for tag-team blogging if you’re game. I can’t think of anyone else I know who’s qualified (because I’m not, except as a guinea pig.)
What, not so hypothetically, would be a good model or specification of used laptop to take an installation of Ubuntu or [the lighter] Xubuntu [Linux operating system] suitable for the director of a small, cash-strapped non-profit or the minister of small cash-strapped church. You know: the band between helplessly old but “old enough” to be bought at a small cost or given away.
And then what do you install on it if the user is tech-inexperienced? What features are non-negotiable? (I have opinions.)
Might you be game for a blog dialogue? Or do you have a ready-made resource you’ve written or know of?
Take care,
Scott Wells
She’s agreed, and we’ll link back and forth. Is this of interest of you, dear readers? I have a bit of a vested interest here: I have no laptop, but think one will help me in coming days. I don’t have the cash to buy a new one, and think that reusing electronics is the right ecological and economic move. Plus, I would want to install Linux on it anyway, so I would rather avoid the “Microsoft tax” of getting a new laptop with a Windows package installed. (There are ways around it.)
Later. The reply: part 2
19 October 2006 at 12:52 am
New-to-you laptop: best for churches or non-profits, part 2…
Scott Wells and I are doing tag-team blogging this week, the topic: how well can a used laptop work to run an operating system like Ubuntu, or it’s lighter cousin, XUbuntu. Scott’s basic question (part 1) is posted on his blog today. Basically, the q…
19 October 2006 at 1:11 am
My sister had an OLD OLD compaq presario 1245 or something (hmm 160 MB ram, 400mhz processor (or so), a few gigabytes harddrive) that worked pretty well on Ubuntu Hoary.
Of course…I think it’s finally dead.
And it worked well with the wireless card I got for it.
3 years ago it was very old but it served her well for a year in grad school. It was running win98 tho..until I got my hands on it!
I got it free from an online friend.
Good luck with the quest.