2008/7/7 James Pluck <papabearnz(a)gmail.com>:
Thanks Bruce. Back to the drawing board then :)
All the best in your search. I've just had some fun with an Acer 4315 - $400 after cashback (the latter not so easy to claim as Acer NZ sends you to the Aussie site, which insists you must be an Australian resident!). As delivered, it didn't work with the wireless router I've been lent. Scrubbed the Ubuntu 7.10 installed and loaded 8.10 alpha 64-bit. Ian managed to get it working with his wireless router, but not the one he lent me! Robert installed Suse 10.3 and he managed to get that talking - I'm using it now. Also downloaded and installed Poseidon 3.0 (see http://sites.google.com/site/poseidonlinux/ ) - really Ubuntu 8.04 in disguise - which I thought may be useful for maths and science in secondary schools. Am expecting some feedback on that later. I've ended up with a good portable "play" / emergency / demo computer - but one with very limited memory options (so I was told when I went to buy more RAM). The 3 OSs mentioned above all installed (+ a Puppy file), and I've left room for a 4th. Downloading Poseidon was an interesting experience. Was using 8.10 64-bit (the only system installed at that time) and the wired connection at the time but my router/modem kept dropping the connection. Switched to Puppy 4.0 and got the job done! Michael