You can order the Live DVD from the Ubuntu website. There is a nominal charge to cover postage and handling.
If you have an older machine with hardware limitations, try PuppyLinux. Its lots of fun, easy to install and use, and does most things you would want to do, including graphics and music. It comes with a full suite of applications, just like all computers used to in the good old days when dealers would throw in all sorts of extras along with the operating system. I am running it successfully on a 12-year old Pentium II which I haven't the heart to see turned into toxic waste on a dump somewhere. I dual boot with 98SE although the Linux is on a second hard disk taken from an even older computer which suffered mainboard failure.
For what its worth, I have a much younger Dell machine with a mainboard that could fail at any moment. The capacitors on it are swollen; Chinese junk. I have seen the same problem in set top boxes (digital converters/terrestrial receivers, etc.) which allow digital reception for older analogue TVs. Manufacturers source parts from various suppliers as cheaply as they can. The capacitors are often the weakest link. If you are good with circuit boards you can replace them yourself in some cases; depends on the architecture.
Consumer electronics is the next big pollution threat. Did you hear about the firm in the US that was taking surplus computers from government departments on the understanding that they would be disposed of acceptably? Thousands were dumped in some West African country. The kids there were pulling the circuit boards out and melting them down on open wood fires to recover the gold from the contacts. Many of the youngsters involved are now seriously ill from inhaling toxic fumes.
We inhabit this lovely, clean, hassle free virtual world, but everything comes at a price and someone always ends up paying.
Sign up with Google
