linux + my dad = ...?

[a cup of tea]

My dad has an old-ish computer with Windows XP that's freakishly, mind-numbingly, headdeskingingly slow. Click on something, get up to make a cup of tea, and when you return it's still not loaded.

I put Puppy Linux on a CD and booted my dad's computer with it, just to see it. It was lovely and fast. I wasn't trying to convert him to Linux, I just wanted to have a laugh at the difference between that and XP.

He's interested in installing Linux on his computer now. There were a couple of problems with Puppy for him. One is that Seamonkey was closing unexpectedly while he was browsing. I don't know if it would do that still if we installed Puppy on his hard disk, or if he'd be ok using a different browser, but it's a problem. The other issue is that he wants software similar to Quicken. It seems like GNUcash would be suitable. It's not in the Puppy package manager.

Also, I'm the only one in the family who uses Linux, and I know that if he installs any flavor of Linux, he'll be coming to me if he has problems. I am not...nerdy enough to be confident about that. :shock:

What distro would be good for my dad? He has 256 MB of RAM and a penchant for installing lots of junk (questionable anti-virus softwares, multiple toolbars for Internet Explorer...).

[xuCGC002]

mini.iso and LXDE/IceWM/Other Light WM should do the trick.

[lrcaballero]

Go to distrowatch.com and do some research based on your dad's computer hardware and see what best works for him. Also as far as antivirus, NO worries! it won't happen with Linux your safe.....

Good Luck


Luis

[Aemaeth]

I have had much sucess with the damn small linux distro. the install can be a little of a headache but the speed is worth it. Its also available as a live cd. entire os can be loaded to-ram. the entire os packs in at 50mb...

[jrrader]

I never had any luck with Puppy on anything but Virtual Box until I tried Puppy Crypt (from the puplet section of the Puppy website). It was okay but now I run crunchbang from a USB stick on the old computers where I work. Crunchbang is an Ubuntu variant which uses canonical's repos, but not for the non-geek type. It's blazing fast on an old computer. If you wanted to spend some time figuring out how to add menus and such, crunchbang would be a great choice for your dad's computer.

[bribera]

The other issue is that he wants software similar to Quicken. It seems like GNUcash would be suitable. It's not in the Puppy package manager.

Perhaps a web service like Mint (http://www.mint.com/) or Quicken Online (https://www.quickenonline.intuit.com) would suit him better. They have the added benefit of being used from any computer and having their data survive hardware crashes, reinstallations, etc.

Desktop applications are so passé, anyway ;)

[a cup of tea]

I'll suggest Quicken Online to him. :D

Crunchbang looks really interesting. I'm downloading that now.


Also as far as antivirus, NO worries! it won't happen with Linux your safe.....
I know. I think my dad's computer might seem more capable when it's not running anti-virus software, those programs really hog resources.

[Sealbhach]

There's a Fluxbox edition of Linux Mint you might want to try:

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_felicia_fluxbox.php

.

[jrrader]

Here's a thread on how to get an auto-updating menu going on crunchbang (http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/19/auto-update-menu/). The way it comes, you have to add anything you download to the existing right click menu.

[Ms_Angel_D]

Perhaps a web service like Mint (http://www.mint.com/) or Quicken Online (https://www.quickenonline.intuit.com) would suit him better. They have the added benefit of being used from any computer and having their data survive hardware crashes, reinstallations, etc.

Desktop applications are so passé, anyway ;)

Not to thread hijack but thanks for those links, I just finished checking out Quicken online and I love it ;)

[tylerspaska]

I just installed jaunty on my netbook, removed all the crap that I don't need (including gnome), got the install to less than 2GB and then installed e17. It is incredibly fast and light. They system runs with less than 150MB and looks amazing.

[a cup of tea]

Crunchbang is beautiful! My dad's asleep and I don't think he'd like it if I woke him up to tell him I've got the perfect Linux, but it's so tempting. It's like Ubuntu, but prettier, and probably faster (I can't tell if it's faster from the Live CD). OMG.

edit: I hope I don't offend anyone by saying it's prettier than Ubuntu. I like Ubuntu, and my preferences with regards to style and menu layout are just personal, subjective preferences.

edit #2: I know my dad might like Damn Small Linux or Puppy or something else altogether. I'll show him what's available as well as I can and let him decide.

[jrrader]

edit: I hope I don't offend anyone by saying it's prettier than Ubuntu.

Never heard of Ubuntu being praised for it's beautiful default setup. Just remember that the main advantage of #! is that it uses the Canonical packages, which is probably the best in the linux world. This also means you can add the packages kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop for users who do not want to use the simple windows manager (clicking session on the log in screen allows you to select). My first generation Macbook is set up with crunchbang. I log into my main account and it goes to the default crunchbang environment. If I log into the account I've set up as guest, the default is KDE4 (much easier for non-linux people to use).