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Apparently, glibc handles DST using some data files that describe the time changes depending on the time zone you select. They are usually located at /usr/share/zoneinfo, and they are also usually provided by a package. In my Slackware system, the package that provides, essentially, those data files is called glibc-zoneinfo. A quick search on packages.ubuntu.com reveals that the equivalent Ubuntu package, for example, is tzdata. So I would say that a simple update in the relevant data files and packages should do the job.

Isn't this exactly what Ubuntu is doing (minus the easy conversion wizard)? They "throw around" CDs, and even try to send you more CDs than you need so you'll hand them to your friends.

So all they need is a snappy mascot. I nominate him.

Isn't this exactly what Ubuntu is doing (minus the easy conversion wizard)? They "throw around" CDs, and even try to send you more CDs than you need so you'll hand them to your friends.

So all they need is a snappy mascot. I nominate him.

Who f'n cares?

OS X still remains hardware land locked - only runs on Macs - so forget about it... OS X does not exist.

Millions of PCs have nothing to gain from OS X - it just wont install.

Now if Apple rolls out a simplified OS X (just the basics - iLife is separate) that you can install via a live CD Bootable CD-ROM,
then it will get interesting.

Ubuntu Linux you can pop the CD in a computer,
and use it - not even bother to install it to the Hard Drive - and amazingly - it just works. Use a Memory Stick to save your work, songs, etc.
When you shut down the PC it was like you were never there. Windows Vista can't do that, OS X might if it is streamlined. Linux has now passed commercial software in quality, price, and performance.

IF Apple can make an OS X CD that works like a Ubuntu Live CD - Vista better be worried.
OS X has no problem running on older hardware, as long as a good graphics card is present.
OS X would fly on any 'Ready for Vista' PC.

Tell me when I can download from the Apple Website an official copy of OS X 10.5 live CD to install on an HP media center PC,
and then you can consider it a real choice against Vista.

Otherwise - it is extremely doubtful corporations will even take notice of OS X,
buying all new hardware will make the accounting department bring flaming torches and pitchforks to the IT department,
hungry for blood!

Apple - Making the same missteps as Atari and Commodore.
Too much navel gazing, not enough offense against the market space.

What about a 100 % monopolistic approach to iTunes songs and videos, perhaps?

iTunes files only play on an Apple iPod.

When Apple customers can play there tunes on this and their movies on this, while running an GPL OS license copy of iTunes on this,
then you know that Apple is dedicated to meeting the needs of ALL of it's customers, worldwide.

Typically, the marketplace favors the more open companies, more open formats.

So Apple should release a stripped down 'Lite' version of OS X for all PCs, for free.
(Include TextEdit, Calculator, DVD player, Safari, Mail, and iTunes, and the Utilities with the Lite OS X for PCs).
Sell iLife, QuickTime Pro, and iWork as separate products, that still can run on the Lite OS X for PCs.
License the Apple protected file format to other manufacturers.

Release the free Lite OS X the same day when MS Vista ships - let customers decide what they want.
Make Lite OS X downloadable as a burnable .iso image, or pick up a copy of it at the Apple store for $9.95 CD in a box. The Lite OS X CD should be a bootable full playing install CD like a Linux Live Install CD.

Still a full copy of OS X (with iLife) comes with the purchase of an Apple Mac PC.

Having more compatibility with an even larger user base does not diminish profits,
it should increase global sales for Apple and from iTunes even more.

iTunes proved that when iTunes went from a Macintosh Only software - to a Windows & Mac software.
OS X can prove that same example too - since it would run quite easily on any 'Vista' compatible PC.

Link to ubuntu or gentoo or something.

Decisions decisions

A team of geeks could design their own system, pick their own architecture, load it with Free-as-in-ESR software, and sell it competitively with Windows PC's.

How do I know this?

Cobalt Flux sells an extremely popular dance pad for DDR-type games

design their own system, pick their own architecture, load it with Free-as-in-ESR software, and sell it competitively with Windows PC's...

So why doesn't someone try this? Or does someone?

Yes, there are some clear winners, the forums are great, and the compatibility list is: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Wireles sCardsSupported As far as the router, I tend to stick with anything that is supported by DD-WRT http://www.dd-wrt.com/ The best is to find the wireless cards that work perfectly with network-manager right out of the box on the recent version(s) of Ubuntu.

I've been a faithful RedHat/Fedora Core user for years, but obsolescence happens too fast for anything but test or playground machines these days, where you don't mind a complete reinstall every now and then.
Since I don't need RedHat's support, my servers now run CentOS, and everyhingthing else is on Ubuntu.

What? You don't like the interface of a debian-derived distro, so you went with debian? Because you like windowmaker? You can run windowmaker in Ubuntu, too...

http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/x11/wmaker
http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/x11/wmaker

Like I said, Ubuntu has not experienced a single crash for me. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to be more stable than that. Grad the server install, then do the "apt-get install wmaker" thing to get Ubuntu without the ubuntu desktop. It'll be just like Debian, except for the updates happening more than once every decade. ;)

What? You don't like the interface of a debian-derived distro, so you went with debian? Because you like windowmaker? You can run windowmaker in Ubuntu, too...

http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/x11/wmaker
http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/x11/wmaker

Like I said, Ubuntu has not experienced a single crash for me. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to be more stable than that. Grad the server install, then do the "apt-get install wmaker" thing to get Ubuntu without the ubuntu desktop. It'll be just like Debian, except for the updates happening more than once every decade. ;)

Did you install the binary video drivers? Licence issues prevent these being distributed as part of the default install on most linux distros. The default X drivers are very like the default windows XP video drivers - slow. That may be what caused your video playback issues, as I playback video all the time in gentoo and ubuntu, and both run fine in any player.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowt o is a good place to start, assuming you didn't already. http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ is another good place to go to get the binary-only and non-free packages that make life easier, which can't be distributed with the main distro for legal reasons. Did I mention software patents suck?

2. Drop the tribal African bullshit. The vision of Voodoo witch doctors and 419'ers conjuring up a distro don't fill me with confidence.
3. Change the name. See number 2.

Ubuntu, if you ever cared to look it up, is a reference to the spirit of forgiveness and humanity that inspired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to create the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to keep South Africa from spiraling downward into civil war and slaughter. It won them the Nobel Peace Prize.

The choice of name is deliberate. Mark Shuttleworth, the man whose millions have allowed this whole process to happen, is doing his tiny part to mend South African society by following the example of some of the greatest political thinkers in modern history. The philosophy behind Ubuntu Linux is: An educated society is an enlightened society. So Shuttleworth and his foundation are spending millions of dollars promoting this principle.

Ubuntu isn't branding; it's what this software is. Heck, they're even giving away CDs to anyone who asks.

So with all due respect, try to learn just a little about something before voicing an opinion on it. You would really benefit from a learning to practice Ubuntu from time to time.

HTH HAND

So what are we going to get? It is hard to exactly predict, but some things seem certain. Feisty will certainly lead the way with new desktop technologies, including 3d effects and windows that wobble. On the networking side, Network Manager is likely going to finally make it on the default desktop, after what seems like forever waiting in the wings. On the Zeroconf side, Feisty will have Avahi installed and enabled by default. Upstart, the sysvinit replacement, is going to have the new event-based init system actually turned on, for faster and more reliable booting.

Incorrect.

The latest nVidia package doesn't support the newer 8800 hardware - the packages are about 2 or 3 releases behind the drivers available on nVidia site.

Also the ATI drivers won't work either. At least, 3D acceleration wouldn't work when I just installed the package as above. You have to do the tons of voodoo mentioned here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowt o/ATI to make them actually work and get 3D acceleration.

Ohh and on the damn ubuntu machine that is useless because it wont connect to get updates because no support for wireless lan.

In terms of Linux, where you have many options to chose, it is good and bad. Good because you have many distros and each one with some specific features and it is bad for the same reasons :)
I've been using Slackware for many years and i really love it, it is simple and in my opinion, easy to use.
But you always can try Ubuntu that looks real good and Debian because of its package manager that may make things easier for newbies.
You must keep in mind that any linux you chose, does not matter, you'll always have many similar tools for math and programming.

Before you decide take a look at the following links:

Slackware
Debian
Ubuntu
Gentoo

It is very important that you learn something about those linux distros out there and make
your own decision, pointing out what does really matter and what doesn't
Don't you have some virtualization tool for testing? You can install a couple of distros and
then make your decision based on experience.
good luck!

I've used RedHat distros back to RH6, and Fedora Core 3 since two years ago. All were on dual boot systems with Win98, Win2000, WinXp, as the case might be. I haven't updated to Core 5 (6?) because I have a customized laptop and it would be more trouble than it's worth. But that does mean I may not be being entirely fair to Fedora.

I've used Ubuntu Dapper and Edgy on a Dell Inspiron, and I am wildly impressed. It installs and just works out of the box, but if you want to play with stuff, it is *nix, and you can go as deep as you want. (The stumbling block there is that Ubuntu makes it complicated to act as root, but if you get tired of that, go to Ubuntu Community help: root-sudo on how to do things your way.) Ubuntu also has much more active and useful help forums and wikis, in my experience, that the things I've found on Fedora. That may be my fault, because I'm not searching for them right, but even so, that means Ubuntu's are easier to find. I tried to collect useful info and links on dual-boot install of Ubuntu, but there's heaps of help out there.

This answer shows why the question is nonsensical on its face. No one can tell you what distro is best for you. Everyone has a different personality. For me, Slackware is the ideal distro for a newbie. But then, I like to read up on any product before I use it. So I thought it was easy to install and now it is very easy to administrate. It has lower overhead from all of the bells and whistles that some of the other distros have included. There is no dependency hell that can be so frustrating to a newbie. If you stay away from the auto updaters and read the changelogs, you will never have a broken system. If you are like a lot of the Windows users that come over to Linux, however, you will probably be better served by one of the other distros. The majority of them want to run the installer CD and then just have everything be set up and work. Of course some of them become so frustrated the first time they run into a problem and have no idea on how to fix it, they run back to Windows. But good luck to you.

Which distro to adopt if you are a newbie really depends on what you want to achieve or learn by installing Linux. If you want an alternate desktop system you could go for Ubuntu, Linspire, Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop distro where you get lots of user friendly GUI tools to solve your configuration problems. If your ambition is to become a corporate Linux admin or a developer and you want to build a server system to cut your teeth on I would recommend something like Centos because it is a free-of-charge binary 'clone' of Red Hat ES/AS which along with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the standard for anybody who runs enterprise quality software including the ubiquitous Oracle Databases. Slackware on the other hand is only for you if you are a for true nerd, developer, comp-sci/engineering student or some such eccentric who want to find out the old fashioned way how a modern *NIX system is put together. Basically I'd say that if you are a complete Linux newbie, say... an experienced Windows XP user, you should definitely start with one of the ultra user friendly Linux desktop distributions and proceed from there. If you want to become a professional Linux admin you should also get over any fear you may have of command-line interfaces and doubly so if you have any ambition to do any serious development on a Linux system.

If you want an easy, out of the box solution go with Ubuntu or one of it's variants. http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.kubuntu.org/ http://www.xubuntu.org/

If you want to tinker with the OS a bit I'd suggest Slackware. http://www.slackware.com/ It isn't as easy to set up or maintain. However, you will have more of an opportunity to actually learn what is going on with they system.

"Configuring suspend can be time consuming trial and error. What I think we need is a laptop distro, or at least some sort of app that sees what kind of laptop you have and automatically configures suspend, multimedia buttons, wireless, and other things that are peculiar to laptops."

I have a suspicion your recent Linux experiences have been colored by Gentoo, so I'll point out that Ubuntu's first goals were laptop related. The "laptop-detect" program is supposed to determine whether the system being installed to is a laptop or not. Suspend to swap works, suspend to RAM appears to not work at all on this hardware with nvidia modules installed. The wireless, the Fn-keys, and volume control all work out of the box for me, but understandably, these things are hit and miss. Testing laptops is expensive, hard, and even when you do find a bug, if you can't fix it, finding someone who has the hardware who can fix it may prove impossible.

There's still plenty of room for improvement, but I think you can accomplish the goals you're looking for without forking a yet another distro: the Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team aims to test, debug and improve laptop support on ubuntu. There's a already plenty of support infrastructure, so if anyone wants to help, there's the place to start. And if you need any help, it's also a good place to start!

Furthermore, don't wait around for fscking Vista to fix problems that Microsoft cannot afford to fix.

Protecting computers from vulnerabilities that need not be there in the first place is a multi-billion dollar business encompassing thousands of product and service vendors world-wide that ultimately trickle capital back up the vulnerability supply chain.

This bizarre altruistic myth of Microsoft working around the clock to solve these problems, to deliver the customer a trouble-free computing experience, is to be awash on the shoals of pure reason. It is idiocy. No monopoly in it's right mind can afford to produce a flawless, self-obsolescing product. MS is all about creating a sickness and providing itself as the only cure. There's no reason that given time, Apple would do otherwise either - such is the legacy of these old proprietary software corporations and their rental operating systems.

If you want to step out of this self-flagellating pit, try a desktop quality BSD or find peace in the sanity of a certain brownish distribution of Linux.

Why does everyone here overlook the fact that a default install of a modern distro can't play mp3s, flash, and basically all video formats (like someone said earlier: it doesn't matter whose fault this is.)

I've used Linux for years and I still don't bother trying to get any of this working, never mind getting it to work smoothly with stuff embedded in web pages.

I know most of it is theoretically possible, but once you're hacking autoconf files and manually setting LD_LIBRARY paths it's beyond what many people want to deal with.

Here's your answer: http://www.ubuntu.com/ I dumped Novell last week for Ubuntu. Go ahead, it will make you feel miles better.

I use the AMD-64 version of Ubuntu/Kubuntu Linux at home and use Windows XP in a small business at work. Both operating systems seem to be about equally easy to use. Installing and properly configuring Ubuntu was much easier than with earlier versions of Linux that I had used a few years ago. It correctly identified all my hardware with the exception for having to use a GUI to select the correct printer driver. It automatically found my DSL modem and automatically connected me to the Internet. Whenever I insert a USB Flash drive or a CD, an icon for that device appears on the screen (like Windows). There are easy to use point and click GUIs for configuring things. It is not only easier to install and use but feels much more polished and refined than the older versions of Linux. So the Linux desktop is getting better.

When downloading new software, I use either Synaptic or Adept which are easy to use GUI front-ends to the apt-get package manager. I then select a program from the the amazing list of available free programs. Then after about a minute or so the free program has been downloaded and installed. To get new software for Windows XP, I typically need to drive to town, pay for the software, agree to the the stern threatening terms of the EULA, perhaps respond to a pop-up warning from my firewall, and then enter the activation code. With Windows software, I frequently also discover that other software I hadn't asked for was also installed. With Ubuntu Linux removing software with Synaptic or Adept is just as quick and easy.

The typical Linux desktop applications have also improved noticeably over the last few year. Five years ago, the typical Linux application had all the necessary essential features but did not seem like full featured commercial quality software. Now most of the major free Linux applications seems mature and full featured and equal to commercial software. Linux has never had a problem with viruses or spyware, so I don't need to bother with downloading virus signatures or scanning for viruses and spyware. When I had to reinstall Windows 2000 on a computer, I had to first spend about 10 hours looking for the original installation CD before I could even get started. With any version of Linux I would have just downloaded the free iso and burned a CD.

I realize that most commercial games are not offered in Linux versions. I am not a gamer so for me that doesn't matter to me. Some popular industry standard programs such as AutoCAD and Microsoft Office do not come in Linux versions but as a home user, I don't really care about that either. Most companies don't bother writing any Linux drivers themselves, so inevitably there is some hardware out there that is not supported in Linux. Perhaps, as the author suggests, KDE and Gnome developers should get moving, but at the moment I am a happy Linux user. Besides, for me, it isn't purely about who has the latest and greatest new features. I don't want to have to deal with Windows product activation or licensing issues. I recently heard a commercial on late-night talk radio where the Business Software Alliance (BSA) was encouraging people to call them to get a reward for reporting the use of unlicensed software by their employeers. They said that each violation could cost a company $150,000 per seat. I have read elsewhere, that just using licensed versions of Windows and Office and the original installation CD is not always enough to be avoid being accused of software piracy. They must also be able to find records showing where and when they purchased the software. I feel much more comfortable just using Linux instead and knowing that I have the freedom to use it however and wherever I please.

Most people have never even heard of Linux, and even if it is free and getting better all the time, I don't expect many people to give it a try anytime soon. There will continue to be a passionately loyal group of Linux desktop users. I value my freedom too much to even consider using Windows on my main home computer.

Depends on which "Linux folks" you are talking about. There are two distributions which are notable for having long-term releases; releases that have 5+ year support cycles:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and its free clones (notably, CentOS). CentOS 3 is based on RedHat 9 released in 2003, and the last release was just a couple of months ago.
  
• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. LTS means that Ubuntu will provide security updates for this platform for five years.
  

The campaign will organize supporters into effective and unusual actions drawing attention to this daylight theft of computer users' rights, aggregate news stories cutting through the Vista marketing propaganda, and provide a user-friendly gateway to the adoption of free software operating systems like gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org).

gNewSense is derived from Ubuntu, and thus has most of the same functionality. There are a number of differences though.
* Firmware removed from kernel in main*
* Restricted removed
* Ubuntu logos replaced
* Universe enabled by default
* emacs, bsdgames, nethack and build-essential part of the default install

Yes, a computer does work without a Microsoft operating system. Its function is to run the programs contained in a free Linux live CD that the customer obtained through the local counterpart to Ubuntu ShipIt.

The article claims that HP is refusing to properly fulfill these requests.

Selling a computer without Windows wouldn't make it useless, it would, however, make it cheaper.

also: to have a computer that works, you also have to sell it with an OS that works ... and that immediately disqualifies Windows
/ducks

I prefer windows because I get notified in a uniform manner when hardware is added. I prefer windows because there aren't fifty ways to access the same device. I prefer windows because it's easier to develop software for. Have you ever written dynamic hardware detection software for Linux/Solaris?

Don't need to. We have HAL/D-Bus now.

If you have to recompile the god damn kernel just to see your storage it's not user friendly.

Most distros provide kernels pre-compiled with everything available as modules. D-Bus auto-loads modules as needed when new hardware is detected.

Windows is like a Honda Accord, not very exciting, but it works, Linux is like a Ferrari...that's mailed to you in pieces over the course of a year, each piece comes with a manual of how it works and what it does, but gives no instruction on how to use it with other components.

There're these new-fangled things called "desktop distributions." They're mail-order Ferraris that cost less than a Honda Accord (most even free) that come pre-assembled with a dashboard computer that asks you your name when you first get in and helps you tailor itself to your needs. You can even fix the engine yourself if you're so inclined - unlike that Honda that comes with non-standard, esoteric parts that amaze you that it works every time you think you've figured out how it's put together; and you'll be threatened with a lawsuit or jail time if you try to change anything under the hood.

I found it to be incredibly easy to setup, and there are some pretty good guides ready for anyone with the interest:

http://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/

• the system has started,
• the root filesystem is now writable,
• a block device (USB drive) has been added to the system,
• a filesystem has been mounted,
• at a certain time or repeated time period,
• another job has begun running or has finished,
• a file on the disk has been modified,
• there are files in a queue directory,
• a network device has been detected,
• the default route has been added or removed.
• ...plus many more

Try this distro.

XP service pack 3 and Vista SP1 Beta can be downloaded here then installed offline. Remember to choose the "alternate install" ISO.

I never understood why I couldn't get a fast terminal prompt and have the remainder of the daemons start up in the background, all reniced to low priority during the initialization process, or maybe slowly started up to avoid disk contention. I personally amortize the bootup time by buying a bunch of ram, and dd'ing all the files in /usr/bin, /usr/lib/*.so, /lib/*.so, /etc and maybe /usr/share/apps, depending on how much ram I have. This pulls everything into the buffer cache and improves KDE startup significantly.

I'm sure I could optimize this by running some kind of kernel auditor that tracked every file that was run (executable) or loaded (.so), wrote out a list at shutdown, and reused that list to precache on reboot.

A few interesting links: http://kerneltrap.org/node/2157 , http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0609 .2/2180/boot_linux_faster.pdf , http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bo otsystem/deliverable3.html , http://preload.sf.net/ , http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper-backports/admin/ readahead .

And in the GNU/Linux world we have http://upstart.ubuntu.com/ and http://www.initng.org/

However it's not so very interesting on this side of the fence because we don't BSOD or reboot to finnish an install...

These kinds of things are a plague to Windows users only.. I have been using Linux for years and this kind of stuff doesn't plague Linux users. In case you're wondering, Linux is the operating system that is killing off Microsoft Windows right now. I use it for everything from web surfing and email to watching DVD movies to creating and editing spreadsheets/documents/presentations/3D graphics and almost anything else you can think of. To Windows users: This is what you get for using a closed-source operating system designed and distributed by the most untrustworthy corporation in the world who employs morons and calls them programmers. Seriously, throw Windows in the trash where it belongs and install a real computer operating system.

Here is a permanent fix to this latest Windoze exploit.

Permanent Fix to this and all other Windoze flaws

Really, no more issues.

Cheers

As for slow, I don't know where you get your data from, but comparing my gaming XP box to my SuSE Linux 10.0 box, XP actually boots faster, and the GUI is quite a bit more responsive than X with either KDE or Gnome too.

Perhaps it's worth trying upstart and Xfce.

RE:(1) — Did you happen to try adept? ...or explore the Ubuntu wiki? ...how about the forums? Anyone can tell you that apt-get is a fair package-installer, but not the best at package management. Had you tried adept, you may have been able to find a solution in time.

Personally, I use original-flavor Ubuntu. (Gnome) I understand KDE is regarded as a more powerful environment, but it certainly has its flaws.

The kUbuntu documentation is very informative regarding some of the basic functions. (even after it is installed) It has a good description of how to use adept there.

For a FreeBSD advocate, I'm surprised that you didn't try the enhanced UI first.

Best of luck for next time!

RE:(1) — Did you happen to try adept? ...or explore the Ubuntu wiki? ...how about the forums? Anyone can tell you that apt-get is a fair package-installer, but not the best at package management. Had you tried adept, you may have been able to find a solution in time.

Personally, I use original-flavor Ubuntu. (Gnome) I understand KDE is regarded as a more powerful environment, but it certainly has its flaws.

The kUbuntu documentation is very informative regarding some of the basic functions. (even after it is installed) It has a good description of how to use adept there.

For a FreeBSD advocate, I'm surprised that you didn't try the enhanced UI first.

Best of luck for next time!

Personally, I find the Ubuntu Live USB has just about everything you need, and anything you don't have can just be added because it works in "persistent" mode. In this mode, any additional utilities you install, settings, etc. stay on the USB stick.

I got mine pre-installed from these guys. Works great, and it has GParted Live included on it too, which I've used successfully loads of times for resizing Windows partitions (including NTFS).

I actually JUST finished building a computer in an old Nintendo case. It has front USB ports, Slot loading DVD-ROM, audio/video out, and carefully placed power, network, and vga ports. I know I'm not the first person to do something like this, but it sure has been fun! I even have an ATI remote that I configured to control the Freevo menu. I also bought two SNES controllers with USB connectors from RetroZone that work great with ZSNES. The box is running Ubuntu and actually boots up pretty quick. The board is a VIA Epia 6000 Mini-ITX.

The Ultimate Boot CD (a bit old now, is there a better alternative usable with a USB memory stick?)

a Linux Live CD

You can download the patch here

You are mistaken.

from the release notes

With the Ubuntu 6.10 release comes a whole host of excellent new features. Improvements have been made all around, such as faster system boot up times, faster GNOME start up times, improvements to the user interface, a shiny new optimized kernel, GNOME 2.16, and much, much more.

And from the originally linked story it is clear not everyone had such a transparent and generally delightful time of the upgrade as you.

Here's what I have in my CD case, in approximate order of how regularly use them...

Memtest86--because the RAM in the cheap PCs I come across sucks. Some of the other tool CDs have this one as well, I like to get the latest one regularly here. Good for stress testing, and even handy for figuring out things like whether the RAM is running correctly in dual-channel mode.

SystemRescueCD--I particularly like the partition editor and imaging utilities. Been weaning myself off Partition Magic/Drive Image even for Windows work with these two.

Ubuntu live CD and DVD. The CD works in more systems, the DVD version is a completely usable system with a lot of stuff in it. What most impresses me about the Ubuntu live disc is that I can download packages over the network and install them, even thing that run as services, from the live environment. I actually got PostgreSQL installed and some database tests completed, all without a single Postgres file on the media.

Knoppix--Some days, your first choice in Linux live CDs just doesn't work on a random machine; that's why I still carry around this one as a backup.

Bart PE--A bit of a pain to build the first time, but very handy for fixing Windows machines.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor--this one has been less useful lately, as I've been running into NTFS partitions it really doesn't want to write to. My fallback position is to use this to generate a new SAM file, then copy it over with a BartPE disc.

RedHat Enterprise 3 and 4 CDs. While not technically live CDs, you can do a lot with booting into this environment, and I deal with enough people running RedHat versions that they're worth carrying around. I still keep one of the older versions around so I have something running the 2.4 kernel to tests against; occasionally I'll run into some old hardware that 2.6 pukes on, while 2.4 still works great.

This is exactly what I have been doing during the last five months: get old boxes for next to nothing, wipe off whatever windoze they had on, install a shiny new http://www.ubuntu.com/ dapper or edgy on them, prepare everything so that it works forever (openoffice, opera browser, ftp, the usual useful stuff) and -after half an hour introduction - your local association / aunt / parent / benevolent organisation / cat / significant one / mother-in-law... has a powerful machine for everything they may need for the next three years.

And in the mean time they might even learn some sound "under the hood" linux: ubuntu is debian after all and underneath all those shiny frills -that they love- there's a powerful beast awaiting them.