Actually a couple ... a wee while ago my beloved hp envy 14 died the final death. This is a shame because the graphite and magnesium case is a work of art I may frame it. What I would love is a laptop form-factor that has exchangeable insides ... I'd be prepared to spend a lot on a very nice case and never mind the razor thin look ppl seem to want. Ahem.
Anyway...
As a quick and dirty replacement I bought a hp probook with Ubuntu pre-installed off Albany Sen College and hated hated hated it: what have they done to Ubuntu?? Then the battery stops charging so now I can only use it on AC ... OK, so, new machine ... luckily for me, Dick Smith decided to go belly up so I grabbed a 1/3rd price whatever was left after the mad stampede. I felt a bit giddy walking out of the store without my usual meticulous research so fingers crossed...
This one is an Acer Aspire E15 - come with Windows 10 and the new UEFI/EFI boot stuff.
The last windows I had any real familiarity with was Win98 ... so I not have no feel for how windows works at all. The new boot system means I have to go through windows to reconfigure the computer for a new OS ... i.e. in order to get out of a deal with the devil I have to make a deal with the devil.
It was a drama - the dozer struggled and screamed and warned but now I am in the process of installing brand new state of the art Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon. The installer is online happily downloading language packs.
I was using the cinnamon desktop to make the Ubuntu installation more palatable - with luck, today will be the last time I need to use this piece of junk.
I have a big paper about the benifit of Open Source to Education someplace, I may link to it.
And yes, I am getting back into education. See next post.
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