Ubuntu

A short time ago, we bought a new computer for our New Membership Director. Got it at a place that installed Win XP for us, and then I asked the leader of our OMUG GNU/Linux SIG to help me install Ubuntu 8.04 alongside XP. Both he and I were surprised to see Splashtop on booting the computer--he had to explain to me that Splashtop is a very small version of Linux that works in the BIOS: so as soon as the computer is turned on and the Splashtop screen appears, you can browse the Internet or check your (webmail) email. Too cool!

Anyway, we got Ubuntu installed, and I demonstrated to the Sister how to use Splashtop, how to choose Windows or Ubuntu Linux, and how to access her documents on our server (running Suse). She has OpenOffice and is doing fine with Ubuntu--very happy to use it. There is only one program she will need Win XP for, a musical notation program. So far I haven't discovered one for Linux that works well. I tried NoteEdit on one of our Mepis 6.5 machines, but the program crashed when I started it 8^(. So I'll keep looking. I'm aware NoteEdit has been abandoned and the developers have moved on to another similar program, but apparently it's not ready yet.