Pen drive size to put Ubuntu on

[NoOp]

On 12/11/2008 03:10 AM, Computer assistance to Akatsi District project
Ghana wrote:
> Hello
> 
> My mother has a really slow P4 1,5 ghz XP computer. I wanted to give here a
> pen drive with Ubuntu on for Christmas, so that she can have a fast computer
> igain. When you have installed ubuntu, there is a option to put it on a
> pendrive rigth? Is i difficult to get to work?
> 
> And how big should the pendrive be? I dont want to use so much mony on it,
> because i also want to buy her a LCD screen.
> 
> In advanced
> Thank you for any help
> 
> Robert Riksheim
> 

Three points:

1.5Ghz is not slow. Buy her as much memory as the computer can safely
hold, and clean up her WinXP installation. You'll find that by doing
that her WinXP will run just fine.

2. If you don't have a second hard drive, but do have at least 10GB of
room or more on the single hard drive I'd recommend that you either: 1)
install Ubuntu on a second partition and dual boot, or install Ubuntu
from within Windows using the Wubi installer. If you do have a second
hard drive in the computer install Ubuntu on that.

3. Introducing her to Ubuntu via a pen drive is, IMO, a recipe for
failure... There are just too many things that can go wrong, and after
you leave she'll more than likely just pull the drive out and go back to
what she is comfortable with.

Do #1 above and more than likely she'll be fine for another 3-4 months.
Do #2 above only if you are prepared to spend time with her showing her
how to use Ubuntu, and boot back into WinXP when she wants.