On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 18:32:57 -0500 Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote: > Felix C. Stegerman wrote: > > > I've recently acquired a 2nd hand PC I want to use as replacement > > for our (windows 98) family PC. > > That means my mother, stepfather and little sister (5 years old) > > will (have to be able to) use it. > > > > Of course, I want to use Debian as the OS, if I can. > > > > Specifications: > > CPU: 466MHz Celeron > > RAM: 2x 64MB DDR PC100 > > NIC: 3Com 10/100 > > Drives: > > hda: 8.4 GB Seagate > > hdb: 8.4 GB Seagate > > fd0: 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive > > > > Internet access: ADSL (416 Kbit/sec up, 2240 Kbit/sec down) > > > > My mother and stepfather will need to use the following types of > > applications: > > - Browser & E-mail (POP3) client > > - Word processor > > - Spreadsheet program? > > - Image manipulation program? > > > > My little sister plays about 3 different Windows games (some have a > > Mac version too I believe) that she'll want to be able to play on > > the new PC too. > > I've thoght of using WINE, but I have no experience with it. > > I've also thought of dual-booting, but would prefer not to use > > windows at all. > > > WINE, if the games will play in it. If not, win4lin, or VMWare > (cha-ching$), both of which will also require a Windows license; but > you won't have to reboot between OSes. Not on a 466Mhz machine. I don't know of anything that will let Windows games play on a machine that old at any kind of useable speed. > > As for word processing, they're used to MS Word and Corel > > Wordperfect 8. OpenOffice is also installed on the current PC, but > > as far as I know they've never used it. > > Unless they're writing complex documents, they'll adjust quickly > enough. Unfortunately, even OOo is going to be slow for them. Upgrade the ram to at least 256MB, if you can. > > I hardly ever use a word processor myself, since I prefer plain > > text, so I don't know what would be good replacements for > > Word/Wordperfect and Excel. > > Nothing replaces WordPerfect. How I'd dearly love to see a Free clone > of WP. As it is, I've learned to accept OOo. OOo and Abiword both > would probably suffice to replace Word; OOo and GNumeric both would > probably suffice to replace Excel (except for VB scripting). Very true, unfortunately. > > Any suggestions, with arguments of course, on which apps to use are > > welcome. > > Google and the Debian-User archives have all sorts of opinions on the > matter. > > > Image manipulation is something my mother would like to do, but has > > not done before, so I'll try to get her to use The GIMP. Any other > > suggestions are welcome. > > GIMP's what you want. Definitely GIMP. Very nice tool. > > Another matter is which version of Debian to use. > > I'd say unstable would be the best choice, but if anyone thinks > > otherwise please let me know. > > I'd go with unstable, assuming you're willing to put up with the > little kinks that arise every now and then. The kinks are less painful > than the archaic packages in stable, and for me, unstable is more > usable than testing (because bugs get ironed out more quickly due to > the constant flux of unstable). Testing/Unstable's OOo seems quite a bit faster than the regular install you can download from OOo's site, too. Not sure what the Debian maintainers did to it, but they did a _great_ job. > > - What desktop manager/environment do I use? > > Arggh-gh, I hate to say it . . . but KDE. Better yet, install KDM > along with several window managers / environments, and they'll be able > to pick which environment they want to use each time they log in. Good idea. Over time, they may find they like something like IceWM best, as it runs so much faster than KDE. > > - What file-management program(s) should I use? > > Konqueror, or Nautilus. If they use something other than KDE or Gnome, > > there are other FMs out there, including manual manipulation at the > command line, but these two are what will be most familiar to them I'd > think. > > > - How much administration (updating etc.) should I do? > > I usually do an "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" about once a > week. Just depends on what you're comfortable with. If there are any > major security announcements, maybe then as well. Just watch out for packages held back and especially packages to be removed. This can be a sign that you don't really want to upgrade at this time, as something might be broken. (Not always, so you'll have to investigate, watch this list, and/or use your favorite method of watching out for problems.) > > - What do I have to think of regarding security? > > If you're behind a firewall, and take normal reasonable precautions > (don't run as root all the time, don't install an ftp server and leave > it wide open, use ssh instead of telnet, etc), you probably won't have > to worry too much about things. Of course, more security is always > better than less, but just by getting rid of Windows and replacing it > with Debian is a huge improvement. > > > - What do I set-up regarding permissions and limiting their options > > for breaking anything, like deleting their important files, etc.? > > Give each one an account. When asked during installation of Debian if > you want world-readable home directories, answer "No". > > Then configure KDM to start four instances of X/login, and teach them > that Dad is on Ctrl-Alt-F7, Mom is on Ctrl-Alt-F8, etc, so that each > person has their own X session. Configure their screensaver to be > password protected, and that's probably all the security a > (non-psychotic) family needs. My family doesn't even need the > password-protected screensaver. Great idea, but I'm not sure I would try this on a 466Mhz machine. I notice it too much to have 2 sessions running on a 233Mhz w/128MB of ram. Just giving them each their own account and showing them how to log off/log in using kdm should be pretty good, IMO. (It's also very similar in functionality to how Windows XP works.) > > - How do I make everyting as user-friendly as possible/nessecary? > > This question is way too big to be addressed here. > > > - Do you have any additional tips? > > > Re: your old Win98 PC; it might be suitable for a thin-client as a > second Debian machine. Or a file server, or a firewall, or a webserver, etc. :-) Jacob -- GnuPG Key: 1024D/16377135 Random .signature #18: Linux: Because rebooting is for adding new hardware
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