Thanks to all who replied. On Monday 17 April 2006 22:06, Andrew Errington wrote: > > Good idea. Pick one *you* like, since you might inadvertently become his > first point of contact... > > I like Mepis, but I think that stock Debian has a lot to recommend it.
I'm a Gentoo/FreeBSD fan myself, but I've wanted an excuse to learn about Debian so this may be the opportunity. I thought Kubuntu would be simpler for a Linux newbie, but if it's too restrictive then stock Debian could be the answer. > If you want new- they've all got Windows on already. If you want 'new to > you' I'd thoroughly recommend scouring TradeMe for a late-model laptop, or > somewhere like the Computer Broker (now part of Computer Future) in > Washington Way for an ex-lease model. Either way you'll get something > reasonable and well-priced. It is my own personal opinion that something > as old five years or more is adequate for most tasks, and very cheap. I > just got a ThinkPad 600X (500MHz Pentium) for $250 on TradeMe. A definite > bargain, and well-supported by Linux (and IBM for that matter). Ideal for > web/email/OpenOffice etc. (Ye Gods! I can remember people running > businesses on 2Mb 386sx systems and Windows 3.1) The demo went well yesterday and my neighbour seemed to be very happy with KDE and OpenOffice. It turns out that he's probably looking for a desktop rather than a lappie, but either way the ex-lease route could be well worth investigating. The only sticking point yesterday was just at the end when he mentioned games - he's got a few Windows shoot-em-up games he'd like to be able to use, so I guess dual-boot is the best option there. Tom
