Hello,<br><br>I'm happy to hear that you'd like to introduce your mother to Linux :). To answer your questions, I believe that Xubuntu does come with Thunderbird for e-mail, and Firefox for web browsing. The only trouble is that you will need to download and compile the flash player for her, since that does not come pre-installed as far as I know.
<br><br>Like Ubuntu, Xubuntu comes with "Plug and Play" for a good selection of cameras, as well as a good range of software for image manipulation (I believe that GIMP and F-Spot come pre-installed, although I prefer Picasa, myself). OpenOffice does not come pre-installed (although AbiWord does), however, you can install it very easily (sudo apt-get install, or going through the Add/Remove should work).
<br><br>Command line should only be necessary for installing the flash player, which, hopefully, you will be able to do for her. As far as stability goes, like most Linux distributions, Xubuntu (and Ubuntu) are very solid, so I don't think that you should have any trouble with that.
<br><br>Hope that helps,<br>Illusha<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 6/29/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">McDowell, Perry (CIV)</b> <<a href="mailto:mcdowell@nps.edu">mcdowell@nps.edu</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">My mother finally agreed to try out this new thing called the Internet ("It might be more than a fad!!") and I am giving her one of my old (PIII, 500 MHz, 128MB) computers. It had XP on it, but since she is not used to (corrupted by) MS, I was planning on putting Ubuntu on it, since I like Linux, support open source, and wanted a better performing OS since the computer is so old. When I went to the website, I saw Xubuntu, which sounds even better for the old computer. However, I couldn't find a clear breakdown of whether Xubuntu would meet her needs, or whether I should go ahead and install Ubuntu.
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">If there is a page which clearly breaks down who should use which OS, please point me to it. Or please let me know if Xubuntu will meet my mother's needs:</font></div>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">1) E-mail</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">2) Full internet (images, movies, etc.)</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">3) Downloading images from a digital camera and slight manipulation of them.</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">4) Word processing, spreadsheet, etc. (I couldn't find a definitive statement that OpenOffice would work on Xubuntu - this is probably my biggest concern.)</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">5) ABSOLUTELY NO COMMAND LINE INTERFACE REQUIRED FOR ANY OF THE ABOVE- this would probably give my mother a heart attack and speed up my inheritance.</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">6) Very stable - I live two hours away, and so dropping by often to fix things can't happen (although she would probably like that; like most mothers, she thinks I don't visit enough.)
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">Thanks.</font></div></div><span class="sg">
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<address><font face="Arial" size="2">Perry</font></address></div>
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