[Wylug-help] Suggestions for a Netbook/Distro for print server

[James Holden]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:18:19AM +0100, Andy Coulson wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking at pensioning off my Sony vaio with a dysfunctional display, so
> was wondering if anyone can suggest either of the following:

Laptop displays are pretty cheap these days...

> - A new netbook.  I am planning to run Ubuntu NBR on it, so are there any
> that everything has worked "Out of The Box"?  Is there anywhere I buy one
> without having to pay for Windows too?  Can anyone suggest one with biggish
> keyboard keys for the fat fingered amongst us?

I just got a refurbed Dell Mini 10 from Expansys for 199.99 GBP and it's
mostly excellent. The keyboard is particularly good for a netbook,
it's got the newer Atom chipset which is significantly faster and the
battery life is great. The screen is good in bright light too.

Everything "just worked", which was nice.

I found I got poor wireless performance though from the (very common)
Broadcom card. I couldn't find anyone else having a similar problem
though so assumed the wireless card was defective and swapped it out
myself rather than go to the hassle of returning it. No further
problems.

It shipped with Windows 7 Starter edition, which minimises the Windows
tax.

If you're around the city centre during the day feel free to drop by and
have a play.

> - I want to us the Sony to replace a print server, so I can sure one or two
> printers with a couple of linux boxes and a windows box, and possibly extend
> it to sharing a portable HDD and a scanner.  If the Laptop Screen finally
> gives up the ghost I need to do things remotely.  I know I can administer
> CUPS through a browser and perhaps use Webmin to look after the system, but
> what about Samba? Can anyone suggest a distro that is suited to doing this
> and is fairly novice friendly?

Samba can be administrated via Webmin IIRC, but it's been a while since
I looked at Webmin. I live in the console.

Cheers,

James

> 
> Thanks
> 
> Andy Coulson

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> Wylug-help at wylug.org.uk
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