[xubuntu-users] OEM install

[daniel.faulkner at boltblue.com]

I work at a school and we've got a few computers to sell/give away (with no software
licensed for them), i've used linux for years, lately ubuntu and suggested setting up
the computers with linux which seemed to go down quite well with the system manager,
who was concerned at trying to sell/give away a system with no software.

The computers are roughly 500Mhz intel, 128mb ram and 20gb HDD and whatever builtin
graphics card is on the motherboards (used to run windows XP). The suggested ideas
have either been to sell them at a few pounds each or to give the computers to any of
the children who don't have a computer at home. Seems silly to pay to have the
computers disposed of if we can give them a new lease of life.

So as most of the computers have no CD drive (can install from an external drive or
fit a CD drive for the installation period) and theres a chance won't be plugged into
the internet any time soon i'm trying to decide which ubuntu varient to go with, i
want it to be ubuntu based (or debian based) as it's what i've used and don't want to
setup something i'm not used too.

Xubuntu seems the obvious choice as it's designed around the older machine, but is it
featureful enough considering that it's going to be awkward for the end user to add
extra programs? Would plain ubuntu offer a more mature and better app selection and
run at a reasonable speed?
I guess i should find out myself, when i have time i'll try and setup one of the
computers with ubuntu/xubuntu and find out the performace for myself, but i suspect
i'll find ubuntu to work but slowly.

I tried to test the xubuntu oem setup procedure in qemu to get an idea of the process:
* There is very very little documentation on the oem process and how to customize the
install (changing backgrounds/default setings etc)
* Once you have logged in as the oem user and added the extra packages you want and
run oem-prepare (or whatever the command was), on next logging in the OEM setup
doesn't seem to (IMO) look all that nice and isn't helpped by having the default
ubuntu wall paper on the screens where the new user enters his/her name. (instead of
the xubuntu wallpaper which suits the theme far better and would be more consistant).
* After i installed xubuntu in the virtual machine i came across a bug (reported in
launchpad) where every time i tried to open a terminal X crashed.

So my experience wasn't all that good, i've used xubuntu in the past and loved it on
my older laptop etc. I really recommend some of the dev team try an OEM install to
see what i mean about the wall paper issue (I think the process needs a little
polish, i like the kubuntu oem screen shots looks very professional)
Is anyone else effected by the terminal problem? This would be a bit of a show
stopper if it affected those PC's. More documentation is definatly needed, it's
sparse for all the ubuntu family but kubuntu and ubuntu do have a screen shot tour in
the wiki of the process at least so mores needed in this respect.

So any input at this point from the xubuntu community would be welcome and advice on
what setup would be best (my thoughts have been leaning towards investigating
xubuntu, and installing the complete openoffice suite ontop of xubuntu). Any packages
other than open office you would think are essential to a stand alone setup?

Daniel

PS. I appreciate this is a volunteer effort and don't expect the areas i identified
to be sorted just for me, i would love to help in anyway i could in what little time
i have too spare lately.

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