[hblug] Computers with Ubuntu

[Michael Adams]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 10:29:09 +1300
Steven Gilberd wrote:

> 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.
> 

My vote would be evolution as well. Simply because being on the OO.o
mailing lists one of the main criticisms of OO.o is it has no Personal
Information Management component (PIM or Calender / Time management
tool) like Outlook does - Outlook-Express doesn't either.

> 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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> 
> 
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