[sf-lug] Somewhat related to "Ubuntu 17.10 now out, etc..."

[acohen36]

Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> wrote at [01]:

> Today the latest version of Ubuntu 17.10 showed up on
> the <http://distrowatch.com/> site.  Shortly it was followed
> by Xubuntu & Ubuntu Mate.  I found the Lubuntu site
> <http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/17.10/release/>
> so that I have Lubuntu 17.10 in x86 and amd64
> varieties as  well as Ubuntu 17.10 amd64. No 32 bit version of
> Ubuntu is up as of my writing.

So "somewhat" related to the various 'buntu's v17.10 listed
here, figuring out how to best configure a 'buntu install
for a Windows (yuck, I know!) user who is still using 32bit
Windows XP on a 64bit PC, who is footdragging on using
and learning *any* form of Linux, and just refuses to
upgrade to Windows 10 despite Microsoft and others'
continued exhortations to do so.


Who?
- For a 70yr+ Senior Citizen, by me; no charge for my
performing what's necessary for this family member

On What?
- A DualCore amd64/64bit Windows 10-compatible PC
with 4GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB hd, DVD R/W,...etcetera

When?
- ASAP before Halloween, and of course before the next
SF-LUG meeting [02]

Where?
- Residential house and apartment (as opposed
to offices, I-cafes, workspace/hackerspace areas,
etc in the central, urban parts of the Bay Area.
There is sufficient Ethernet/wired and WiFi/wireless
access at both residences.

Why?
- Reason explained above and also because that
Windows user isn't going to shell out more
money and do any Windows upgrades by themself.
And _NO_, I'm not going to blame that
particular family member for refusing to upgrade
Windows XP or for their continued refusal to just
sit down and learn Linux(!)

  How?
1a. Probably will use one of the Ubuntu-based LTS
distros Linux Mint [03] v18.2 and/or Xubuntu[04]/
Ubuntu Mate[05]/Lubuntu[06] v16.0.x
Am comfortably familiar with using these distros,
their Community Support and their accessible
documentation.
1b. Possibly would consider Linux Lite [07] in the
future, although for the time-being, no.
1c. No plans to install and use Zorin [08]
(don't like their available support or the push
to use their Software Store)

2. Would partition a 250GB hd as ~40GB /,
1.5 x physRAM swap, and 200 GB /home.

3. After such an install, am seriously considering
using Noobslab's [09] theme and icon
reconfigurations [10][11] to essentially "fool" the
user into being familiar with a Windows 7/8-lookalike
adaptation to the standard Linux desktop environment.
After configuring the Linux distro's startup splash
screen and default wallpaper to mimic Windows 7/8,
then I'd probably also want to configure desktop
shortcuts renamed to labels such as at least "My
Computer", "Control Panel", "Wordpad", "Office Suite",
"Printer", "Graphics Editor", "Command Prompt",
"PDF Viewer", "Image Viewer", "Media Player1",
"Media Player2",...  etcetera.
Note that nearly all the aforementioned distros have
pre-installed variations of Firefox, Thunderbird, and
Chrome/Chromium.

The above seems to be the best gameplan, although
helpful pointers are almost always welcome here ;-)
-A



References
==========================

[01]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012918.html
[02]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012917.html
[03]https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=29
[04]https://xubuntu.org/
[05]https://ubuntu-mate.org/
[06]http://lubuntu.net/
[07]https://www.linuxliteos.com/
[08]https://zorinos.com/
[09]http://www.noobslab.com/
[10]http://www.noobslab.com/p/themes-icons.html
[11]http://www.noobslab.com/2015/06/do-you-like-windows-look-and-feel-but.html

==========================


acohen36 at sdf.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org