[hblug] Computers with Ubuntu

[Steven Gilberd]

G'day all,

"Bring on the comments/criticisms etc :)"

Brilliant idea, but not too sure about the dedicated firewall idea - a
desktop-type PC uses a lot of power.

Regarding the email client, which would be better - Thunderbird or
Evolution? For those users who are switching from Windows, Evolution is
a lot more 'Outlook-like'. However there's a lot to be said for the
clean simplicity of Thunderbird.

Cheers,
Steve

On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 09:53 +1300, Daniel Faulknor wrote:
> Hi All,
> Meeting before last i think, Perry bought up the idea of getting 
> old(ish) computers donated by people, installing ubuntu on them, getting 
> them working properly, then selling them, complete with a Keyboard, 
> Monitor, Mouse and Cables etc.
> I thought maybe it was time to start looking into this further (i now 
> have a quite a bit of time on my hands, as its almost school holidays)
> 
> Anyway:
> 
> The General Plan, from what i remember at the meeting, and some other 
> discussion.
> 
> We get older computers from people - Computer shops would be a likely 
> place to go, also schools, as some schools (like my own) upgrade a 
> classroom every 1 or 2 years, and they usually just have the computers 
> sitting in some store room. Maybe setting up an agreement with the shops 
> (and maybe schools) where they agree to give us any computers (including 
> all the peripherals would be nice) they either: are never going to use, 
> or are going to throw away.
> Pretty much any computer would be of use to us. If they are too old to 
> run a desktop (GUI), is it possible that we could think about firewalls? 
> especially if someone is a dial up user, and we could sell them a 
> firewall (they would probably have to supply the external modem) and a 
> computer, and make sure that the computer is setup to run through the 
> firewall.
> 
> We would install Ubuntu on the said machines, and configure them so they 
> are ready for someone to use, this would probably include multimedia 
> applications, email (Thunderbird isn't installed by default) and general 
> applications that we think would be helpful to people.
> 
> I'm assuming that we would be extending the offer of giving support if 
> something goes wrong, and maybe some basic user training (or we could 
> include a startup guide of some description with all the computers?)
> 
> Also, not thinking too specifically about charging etc, we will 
> probably(?) want to give certain amounts off if people don't want say, a 
> monitor, or something(if they already have a spare of that thing at 
> home). Also we will want to have the computers priced fairly cheaply as 
> our aim is to get as many people as possible using Linux, and make it as 
> easy as possible for them to do so.
> 
> I think thats about it for now, thats the general idea anyway, we can 
> look into specifics at a later date.
> Bring on the comments/criticisms etc :)
> 
> Daniel
> 
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