Signing them out as dead.
That is how some people get more dogs and cats than you'd ever need out of the Pound or the SPCA.
The same goes for laptops.
If you are not a Windows user, ignore this post. You are either a pro or have too much money for gadgets.
I'll trash tablets in one of the upcoming posts without using the words paperweight or fondleslab, promised.
The web still has some reviews from the year 2005 of that Dell Latitude D610 that was signed out as dead at the evil empire. Instead of it going to a poor country to be dismantled by kids and to poison even more of the place, it is now running Ubuntu Desktop 12.10.
The last successful MS Windows install on this baby happend, if I remember correctly, in 2007.
After that came Ubuntu 8, then a long downtime.
Running Linux is so easy these days that you should try it out. Despite the gratuitous bragging and fluffing in the next paragraph.
I may not be the ideal example of the modern Linux user, my first Linux install involved one of these early versions where re-compiling the kernel was an unavoidable step in the installation.
Trying out a new OS on my grandma is not an option either. She would be over 100 years old (do the math if you want).
Fear not. Links and steps are right here:
1) Get a USB stick. The bigger, the better, 16 GB are so cheap nowadays.
2) Go to Ubuntu and download the latest Destop version. It is an "iso image", to you it is just a file whose name ends in ".iso".
3) Go to pendrive and download the easy installer (Universal USB Installer).
4) Run that Universal USB Installer, follow the instructions on the web site. You select 3 items and click "Create".
When it is done, you have a USB stick with Ubuntu. You can run it right off of this stick (restart, hit F12, select Boot from USB) or install it somewhere.
When you have it shut down for the first time, update your resume or cv, or whatever they call the "paper with the technical specs of a human life" where you live.
No comments:
Post a Comment