[soulthoughts]

So I'm thinking about buying a Dell Inspiron Mini for the kids. Link here.

It comes pre loaded with Ubuntu. The hard drive is a solid state hard drive. I don't know much about solid state hard drives but there's nothing to make me believe it's that different from a spinning hard drive. I'm thinking I'd buy it for the price and loading XP on it.

I'm just diving into Ubuntu myself so I hesitate to use it for my kids. They're familiar with XP already and OS X for that matter. So can I just wipe Ubuntu and load XP given that it's a solid state hard drive?

Silly question but I was curious....TIA.

[Happy Noodle Boy]

SSD are faster and different, but they function the same way (you can format/them install whichever way you want).

Also, from the site you linked, you can get one with XP for $50 more, so I don't see why you'd want to get the Ubuntu one only to reformat.

[one1]

Ubuntu is superior to XP in many ways, you just have to adapt. I'd recommend using it and learning how to survive with it. It'll make you a more savvy computer owner and it'll surely make you a better computer user. Hell for that matter any Linux, Unix based system will expand your abilities. Teach'em young and they'll be that much smarter when they are older.

While all their idiot friends are playing with blue screens on XP, your kids will be porting Linux in 2 years with a future in the technology field. With the crossover of the intel platform into Mac, the future of the united OS is just around the corner and you'll HAVE to have this knowledge.

"My kid uses his XP computer to play games"

"Yeah? Mine just designed his game"

[Happy Noodle Boy]

I'm baffled how people still use BSOD are a negative to Windows. It's been years since I've seen one. Linux is indeed a more flexible OS and the openness of it has a lot of advantages, but it's not for everyone. Some people just want something that works from the get go without have to install/configure anything. Windows provides that (so does Mac if you want one of those).

I'm all for using other Operating Systems and Open Source Programs, but trying to sell them by knocking down Windows is alienating and makes you sound like a linux nerd. Windows has it flaws, but there's a reason almost every computer has it.

[Poseidon79]

For kids i'd say go with windows. Best for games and multimedia. The SSHD is basically like a huge flash drive.. no moving parts.

[soulthoughts]

Originally Posted by Happy Noodle Boy

SSD are faster and different, but they function the same way (you can format/them install whichever way you want).

Also, from the site you linked, you can get one with XP for $50 more, so I don't see why you'd want to get the Ubuntu one only to reformat.

I thought so but I wanted to make sure first. We're buying our three older ones laptops for Christmas and were thinking about going w/Dell because of price.

The reason why I would go w/the Ubunutu ones over the XP ones is exactly the $50 dollar difference. If I get three I'm saving $150 by going with Ubuntu and installing XP on my own. I'm not worried about HD space as they store all their stuff on another PC on the network. They each have their own network folder.

Originally Posted by one1

Ubuntu is superior to XP in many ways, you just have to adapt. I'd recommend using it and learning how to survive with it. It'll make you a more savvy computer owner and it'll surely make you a better computer user. Hell for that matter any Linux, Unix based system will expand your abilities. Teach'em young and they'll be that much smarter when they are older.

While all their idiot friends are playing with blue screens on XP, your kids will be porting Linux in 2 years with a future in the technology field. With the crossover of the intel platform into Mac, the future of the united OS is just around the corner and you'll HAVE to have this knowledge.

"My kid uses his XP computer to play games"

"Yeah? Mine just designed his game"

I realize that Ubuntu is better than XP in many ways but the learning curve for a 7, 9, and 12 year old is fairly steep with a new OS. I'm just learning how to use Ubuntu myself. I recently installed Hardy Heron and I'm dual booting on my XP laptop.

That being said, I'm not extremely worried about them being lost using another OS like most kids their age would be. They are already pretty well versed using XP and are pretty good with OS X since we run both at home on top of Ubuntu.

In fact, I was teaching my 9 year old how to use winrar last night as he was trying to run Club Penguin hacks after watching a YouTube tutorial! I was proud of him!

Originally Posted by Happy Noodle Boy

I'm baffled how people still use BSOD are a negative to Windows. It's been years since I've seen one. Linux is indeed a more flexible OS and the openness of it has a lot of advantages, but it's not for everyone. Some people just want something that works from the get go without have to install/configure anything. Windows provides that (so does Mac if you want one of those).

I'm all for using other Operating Systems and Open Source Programs, but trying to sell them by knocking down Windows is alienating and makes you sound like a linux nerd. Windows has it flaws, but there's a reason almost every computer has it.

I haven't seen a BSOD in years myself. You're right about Windows and Macs working right out of the box. My fiancee has two Mac books and they jump on those all the time.

I do prefer Windows for now because I know it well and I know I can find a ton of freeware for it but I'm slowly making the switch.

Originally Posted by Poseidon79

For kids i'd say go with windows. Best for games and multimedia. The SSHD is basically like a huge flash drive.. no moving parts.

And this is the biggest reason why I would reformat and install XP. There just aren't a lot of kids games ported to Linux.