Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
I’ve put Ubuntu 6.06 back on the old Dell L400 laptop (Pentium 3 Coppermine with 256Mb of ram, a 12 inch 1024 by 768 screen that is bright and contrasy, a battery that lasts about 20 minutes and one USB port).
This version seems to run better than 5.04 and 5.10, and the ACPI fan and temperature problems I had earlier have been resolved. I still think Linux is a geek thing, I don’t think the desktop is ready for a typical end user. Just have a look at the howto to get connected to Orange ADSL broadband using the Thomson SpeedTouch USB modem. The instructions work true enough but you have to know that all UK ISPs use PPP over ATM, and that the VP/VC values for all UK service providers are 0.38. You also have to work out that the ‘username’ needed in the scripts is the Orange/Wanadoo/Freeserve username but with the @fs on the end.
Installing Flash player 7 so that you can watch YouTube screencasts takes a bit of doing as well – and I will need to sort the sound and get screencasting with commentary going.
Then I have this crazy idea of buying an Intel Celeron D box for around £200 and a lovely 20 inch screen for around another £200 and surfing and writing handouts with Open Source software. The iBook is there as a safety net.
Note to self: Java with Firefox 1.5sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jre sudo apt-get install sun-java5-plugin
Yup, that’s right, first you install the Java Run Time Environment from Sun (80+ Mb), and to do that you have to have Universe and Multiverse repositories active as you will have if you have installed Flash Player. Then you need to install the plug in stub for Firefox.