Originally Posted by itstarted
Ubuntu -- I call it Linux for dummies, because it's so easy to load and run. It does it all automatically. If you have any spirit of adventure and wondered what Linux was all about, this the the place to start. Frankly, I have no idea of how it works, but it works great, and in many ways, is more simple than windows. It automatically gets all new downloads, so is always up to date. When I get bored, I run Kubuntu, and learnas I go along. It' a great program to load on that old computer that you don't want to spend money on, to update to XP or above.

--I have a "free" laptop that has a very strange processor.
It's a dual core Centrino, which means it's a dual core slug.
This is a very rich feature laden lappy that would be a five star machine if it wasn't for the ghastly slow procs it is burdened with, and I am wondering if maybe it's time to consider using it as a guinea pig for an Ubuntu install.

My only concern, and I've never been able to get it addressed by the unfortunately somewhat snotty Linux power user community, is that I would want to use the machine to transfer files from a Firewire enabled hard drive that I use with my camera. Call it "data wrangling".
I have never been able to determine if Ubuntu will allow me to load drivers for a Firewire/USB PCMCIA card.
If I could figure that out I'd have loaded this puppy with Ubuntu a long time ago.

I also have another Pentium3 lappy which would be an ideal candidate for Ubuntu. It's something of a dog on XP Pro as well, and maybe if I could be confident that there would be no difficulty surfing the web and reading email I'd also load it up too because I'd like to give it to a friend who needs a computer. I don't want to give him a dog which will frustrate him...it has to be able access YouTube, Facebook and all the popular social networking sites which are rich with multimedia content.

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