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On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Rob Beard <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 02/04/11 17:09, Paul Sutton wrote: >> >> How did it go up in exeter today ? >> >> Paul >> > > Quite well. I got there just after 1pm with the memory for 2 of the > laptops. I fitted it and thankfully it worked okay, so we now have two > laptops there with 1280MB Ram :-) > > We got Linux Mint 10 LXDE edition installed on a couple of the laptops from > USB stick. The version we were using was slightly modified in that it was > using the LibreOffice and Mozilla Firefox PPA repositories which gave it > Firefox 4 and LibreOffice 3.3.2 (I removed Gnumeric and Abiword). > > We had a couple of non-LUG members turn up, a woman called Claire and her > elderly father Ron who was interested in trying Linux. > > He had an Acer Aspire desktop PC running Vista *shudders*. I installed > Linux Mint 10 Gnome edition (the CD version) alongside his existing install > of Vista and explained things as I was going along. So far so good until it > came to doing the updates over the internet. He didn't have a wireless card > in his desktop and there was no direct wired ethernet connection available. > I did get around this by sharing the wifi using my laptop so he could pick > up the internet via my laptop although it wasn't particuarly reliable. > > He then told us that he was on Talktalk dialup. It turns out he has an old > USB SpeedTouch 330 ADSL modem which Talktalk provided. So I then went with > Ron and Claire over to his house and finished setting up his PC getting his > Internet connection working with the modem (it's a pain in the backside to > get working, there is an old Debian package available but it depends on some > packages that aren't available in Ubuntu 10.10 or Linux Mint 10 but it > doesn't actually need them to run!). In the end I extracted the Debian > package and copied stuff into place manually to get him up and running. > > So he's happy he's dual booting, he can get the Internet on Linux Mint, his > printer was picked up straight away (it's an Epson Stylus) and I left him > with my e-mail address and mobile number. I also installed TeamViewer on > his machine so if he has any issues I *should* be able to offer a bit of > support remotely (although I'm hoping I won't have to give him much > support). > > While I was installing Linux Mint on his desktop at the community centre his > daughter Claire installed Linux Mint from a USB stick on one of the laptops. > She said it was reasonabaly easy. She's going to come back next month and > 'adopt' a laptop for £25. Rick is going to take a photo and try and get a > press release about it in the paper. We're also going to look at updating > the LTSP on the server there as I believe Ubuntu 8.04 LTS reaches end of > life on the desktop this month. > > It was good to see Viv and Phil too and I finally got to meet Dave Hare (at > least I'm sure Rick said it was Dave Hare, appologies if I've got it wrong). > I had a look at his Exlinux distro. It was interesting to see KDE 3.5 > still being supported (personally out of KDE 3.5 and KDE 4 I prefer KDE > 3.5). > > I gather too from Rick that someone else turned up after I left and got some > assistance with something, Rick did say but I can't remember what it was now > :-P > > So anyway, yeah was good, looking forward to the next meeting, hopefully > more of us from Torbay will be able to make it since it the Paignton and > Exwick meets will be on different days (also means I can make the Paignton > meet again, it's been a while since I've been to the Paignton meet for one > reason or another). > > Rob Sounds like a cracking day Rob (et al). Brilliant! I am impressed you went round the chaps house to finish the install off. Well done! As I (and others) have mentioned before I think that kind of support is essential to give someone (esp. a non-geek) a good linux introduction :-) nice job. Roly :-) -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq