My old Dell laptop, an Inspiron B130, is running Linux Mint 7, all set up with my Firefox bookmarks and passwords. The desktop (i.e. the ‘desktop’ appearance of the laptop, not to be confused with the larger PC workstation of the same name) is customized just to my liking, and I can share files with the other PC. I need this one, and don’t want to change it all the time.
The other PC, a Dell “desktop,” 530S, with its larger (250GB) hard drive, sits in the family room, is running Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), and stores bulky files, like the movies I have been downloading from BitTorrent. At the moment, Elaine is also using that computer because our last remaining Windows-based PC is FUBAR’d. So this second PC is our ‘family media’ box.
The plan is to re-install Windows on that machine, since the recovery disks are still in a drawer. Then, that virus-free Windows box can run Turbo Tax and sync more smoothly with Elaine’s Palm Pilot. This third one, is, in theory, our “important Windows software” box.
There are also the kids’ two laptops, and the very old PC in the basement. That makes six PC’s in the household.
But, you see, I need another one, to serve just as a testbed for new Linux distros. Something reasonably modern and reasonably moveable. The very old box in the basement probably has enough RAM and is otherwise modern enough, but it has a big old CRT-type monitor and an unsupported wireless card. So, to use that machine as a Linux testbed, I’d have to haul it upstairs and plug it into the ethernet cable. Sounds ugly.
Yes, there is no doubt about it. Six PCs are just not enough. I need a seventh one to play around with all these new distros that come out every week,