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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As some of you may know, when I'm not at college,
I'm repairing/upgrading/troubleshooting computers. It's mainly the latter
these days, and a large chunk of my customers are elderly and have zero computer
knowledge whatsoever. All a lot of them want is a simple way to
send/receive email, word process and browse the internet.....</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>For a while I've been thinking about somehow
implementing linux with a minimalist Window manager and just 3 menu options
(Email, Web, Office). In an ideal world I could spend hours compiling
Gentoo from source and configuring the hardware but that's just not practical (I
don't charge by the hour - hehe). I've been racking my brains trying to
come up with a simple way to get linux onto the machine and configured to work
with their hardware in a short enough space of time to make it worthwhile.
I'd welcome any suggestions on this.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My second idea was to sell brand new linux systems
a-la Evesham. I regularly sell a pretty basic system with parts from
eBuyer as a cheap upgrade option, without an OS. It would be simple enough
to do an linux install/config then keep an image to copy over to each new
machine using the same hardware. We're only talking one machine a week
here but every little helps.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The aim of this is to give customers exactly what
they want, a simple to use, stable system that does what they want - no more, no
less at minimal cost (i.e. free). Windows cannot offer this, linux can,
it's just a question of implementation. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The question is - am I mad or could this really
work? Any input welcome. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Adam Smith</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="mailto:adamjsmith@clara.co.uk">adamjsmith@clara.co.uk</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>