Desktop Linux Takes a Hit - an Update

Long time readers may remember that I installed Xubuntu on my daughter's machine back in April. It went pretty well for a while, but she's been complaining about the lack of Windows the past few weeks. Her first problem was that she couldn't install some dodgey toolbar/icon/background/screensaver type program that she downloaded from a suspect site. (I thought this was a good thing.) Now, she is upset because she can't run the AOL IM client and has to use GAIM instead. (Once again, a good thing from my point of view.) Her friends are using it, and she wants to be the one that tells them how it works. (How can I change my buddy icon? Can I use smileys? Etc.) It's kind of neat that she is becoming the tech support guru of the middle school.

However, her machine is kind of slow for XP, so I may install Win 2000 on it in a dual boot configuration - although she'll never use the Linux side. We'll see. Another option is to find a faster computer for her. I should have watched the classifieds at the end of the semester to grab a college student's throwaway.

While I'm working on her problems, I've setup a profile on my desktop machine in XP for her to use. This means I had to change the default OS to XP in Grub, and I have to leave it in XP (or powered off) when I'm at work so that she can get to it without messing up my stuff.

In other news, I was surprised by my Fathers' Day gift this year - a new laptop. It is a Gateway running Vista. Now, I may setup a dual boot someday, but for now I'll give Vista a try. I'm noticing that it boots slower than I would expect on a new machine such as this.

These two changes mean I'll be using Linux less - at least in the short term.