[Solar-general] Fwd: [Latinoamerica] La Compu de Ubuntu

Mie Nov 9 22:09:42 CET 2005

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Ajoy
Date: 08-nov-2005 15:22
Subject: [Latinoamerica] very good impressions of $99 ubuntu computer
To: Latinoamerica AT aprendelibre.net

Date: Wed,  2 Nov 2005 19:52:02 -0500
From: Phil Shapiro <pshapiro at his.com>
Subject: [DDN] very good impressions of $99 ubuntu computer

hi everyone -

   yesterday and today i've been trying out the $99 ubuntu linux
computer (dell optiplex gx1 -- 600 MHz) being sold for $99 from
pcretro.com, a mail-order company in the washington dc area.

    this is one very sweet computer. it surfs plenty fast on the web using
firefox. i have a slow cable modem connection at my apartment that is
equivalent to a 768 kbps dsl connection.

      when i go to a web site, there's a pause for 2 or 3 seconds, and
then the web page loads quite rapidly.  scrolling thru long word
processing documents is fast. (i.e. almost no noticeably delay in
scrolling thru a 100 page word processing document.)

       applications launch relatively quickly. this computer boots faster than
my new pentium 4 windows xp system.

       for word processing and web surfing, this is a very usable computer.
with both firefox and openoffice.org writer programs loaded in memory,
i was using 121 megabytes of 251 available megabytes in RAM.  that
leaves ample free memory for running one or two more applications
concurrently.

        the 20 gigabyte hard drive on this computer has 15 gigabytes free. if
this computer had itunes for linux installed on it, i'd be in heaven.
(apple has not announced such a program, but wishful thinking
sometimes produces results.)

         the version of ubuntu on this computer is version 4.10, from late
2004. presumably newer versions of ubuntu would work even better.

         i'm really pleased this computer is available to community
members at such an affordable price.  the small size of this computer
is also impressive.
it's barely wider than a foot ruler. (it's 12.5 inches wide and 14.9
inches deep.)

        i'll be writing up a more detailed review that will include some photos
and videos. just wanted to share this info early in case it could
benefit any of you.

         for families that have the new $15/month dsl service from verizon or
sbc, this would make an ideal extra computer to have in the house. (or
it could function well as a person's only computer, too.)

          this computer has a built-in ethernet port, so it could share a
high-speed internet connection using an ethernet hub or switch.

             - phil

*****************************
OpenWorld Learning
http://www.openworldlearning.org

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--
Alejandro Rene "El Corrector Empedernido" Fernandez Blanco
Miembro de PLUG (Argentina).
www.plug.org.ar
Petitorio contra el Programa de Malversacion miPC
http://www.petitiononline.com/noamipc1/

Coordinador General del I FLISOL La Plata
http://installfest.net/2005/lugares/ar/laplata