Hmm …
Maybe I should say that, twice …
Hmmm … Hmmm …
Does that work?
I hope so …
Mostly because the first ‘Hmmm’ is simply at a piece of news that’s just floated past, on the BBC News channel; it seems that the EU has approved the splitting up of various parts of the Northern Rock bank, one of the first to be bailed out by the government, during the recession; with the successful ‘High Street’ part being spun off from the government owned bit that’s still collecting the bad debts.
Now, I’m hoping that Dan or Mark will leave some sort of comments, as they’re much more familiar with these things, than I am.
But I’ve a nasty feeling that the phrase ‘scag-end’ is going to be involved, somewhere.
•••••
At any rate, do you remember me saying I’d had an old friend over, last Sunday, and that we’d installed Ubuntu 9.04* onto his laptop?
Adrian, bless ’im, had almost immediately recommended that possibly putting on Xubuntu may have been the wiser choice, as this is designed more for machines like Kevin’s, that aren’t exactly either new, or especially high-spec. (Mind you, he had, rather puckishly, suggested Kevin used Slackware; which is fine, if you’re as comfy as he is with a purely command line interface. For MOST of us … )
He’s right, there; I’ve known Adrian for years, and — former sysop and current coder that he is— he generally does know his way around the various open-source operating systems doing the rounds. He spits even more than I do, when someone mentions a certain Seattle based software company.
Actually, he’s not too fond of Apple, either, but I’ll let him have that one, for now …
But I’m digressing …
He’d mentioned Xubuntu as an alternative to the mainstream release of Ubuntu, as he felt it may run much more efficiently on Kevin’s machine; something I’d thought about, but hadn’t gone for, as it was something I was unfamiliar with.
Or, at least, with the various software packages; something that, with Wikipedia’s help, I’ve attempted to correct.
After all, the basic layout of Xubuntu isn’t that dissimilar from it’s better known big brother.
The main concern I had, was whether Xubuntu came packaged with a parallel to OpenOffice.org, as I know Kevin is especially concerned to be able to write a book he’s working on.
Thankfully, it does.
Something I must admit I knew, as I’ve experimented with the OS X version; it should suit Kevin down to the ground as the user interface is similar enough to products he’s already used. It also seems to have a plug-in available, called AbiCollab, which lets users work, in real-time, on the same document, something he may find useful.
Xubuntu also comes with a spreadsheet editor called Gnumeric — yeah, nice pun … — which again, seems similar to existing products that crossing over shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
•••••
So the next time I see Kevin — and Allison, in fact — I might just suggest we put Xubuntu on their respective machines; considering even Ubuntu Netboot Remix seems a touch high spec … !
* Before I forget, Tim, bless him, managed to find a rather fascinating comparison of Ubuntu 9.10, vs Windoze 7, here …
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