7:50 p.m.
Hi Pierre,
Adam here, the Event team lead.
I'm still using 10.04LTS
<https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/index.html> on
distributed computers but I think it's time to look into doing an
upgrade to 12.04LTS <https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/index.html>;. 10.04LTS
will not be supported <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS> much longer.
I've been using 12.04LTS on one of my home machines for a few months. I
installed Gnome 3 instead of Unity since my video card wasn't capable of
doing Unity 3D. I would imagine most of our donated machine would be
similar and we should start off at a lowest common denominator. Unity
is a very different desktop and would require different user training.
I appreciate that the hardware acceleration, RAM and CPU demands of Unity
3D make it ill-suited to older machines. That said, GNOME 3 is also a very
different desktop than 10.04 LTS's GNOME 2; it also does not use the
"desktop metaphor", removes many features, and has serious usability and
discoverability issues (for example, no maximize buttons on open
windows!).
The Ubuntu 12.04 LTS spin with XFCE, resembles GNOME 2 to a great extent,
and also is less demanding than GNOME 3. It will be supported until April
2015. Another alternative is to use the MATE desktop environment, a fork
of GNOME 2 (GNOME 2 is no longer being developed by GNOME, but several
other developers have picked it up and development of it is active under
the name MATE). MATE is packaged for Ubuntu 12.04LTS on the official MATE
website.
I think either Xubuntu or Ubuntu+MATE would be a much better option than
GNOME 3, both for the older hardware C4C uses, and for avoiding GNOME 3's
usability nightmare.
Thanks for all your hard work!
Adam Saunders
I'm in the process of running an "upgrade" on a copy of my C4C model
machine and will report back how it turns out.
I will post Clonezilla <http://clonezilla.org/> images of both my 10.04
and resulting 12.04 on my website
<http://pierrekerr.ca/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=computers:computers_for_communi...;.
These are about 2gb and are complete ready-to-go images so it's all you
need as far as software for a refurbished machine. They have the two
standard logons and the most common software. I have other images for
special installations including Nepean Housing Draffin Court and the
Heritage academy.
I have also posted my notes
<http://pierrekerr.ca/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=computers:computers_for_communi...
on how to use Clonezilla for refurbishing.
I have access to a fast unlimited upload pipe at one of my other
volunteer jobs. If I remember I'll bring the images when I go in
tomorrow, otherwise it will take hours on my Rogers "High" speed.
I'm open for suggestions. Please use this list.
c4c-tech(a)lists.ncf.ca
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