[Luna] Linux and Community Action

[Brandon Doss]

Hello
My name is Brandon Doss, I am a resident of Flagstaff and an employee at NAU.  
I am in the beginning 
stages of enacting a plan where a significant number of used PC's will be 
distributed among the 
community, hopefully reaching those with the most need.  The PC's will come 
from discount sources, 
they will be heavily used in most cases and quite out-dated.  Pent, Pent II, 
is all I expect with as little as 
64MB  RAM, 3-10GB HD.  This week, I will be cataloging a number of machines 
available to me for 
purchase to get a more specific idea of what is there.  I want to outfit the 
PC's with a Linux OS that also 
provides an Office equivalent (word processor, spreadsheet), a web browser and 
maybe a couple of 
games for the kids.  I have been getting lots of experience lately with IT 
work, so am competent with 
computer skills but am entering a world of the unkown.  I am the IT liaison 
for the Dept of Chemistry at 
NAU and ~50% of my job (for the last 3 months at least) has been working with 
computers, and many of 
them are in the age range described above.  Anyhow, I have no idea what's 
going on with Linux and 
have zero experience with Linux.  I have looked around on the web for 
downloads, but the shear 
number of them available and the variety of flavors are totally overwhelming.  
I am looking for some 
advice, some input from people with experience, some help in this community 
service endeavor.  Is 
there someone in the LUNA community who can advise me on a Linux distribution 
that is easy to use, 
provides basic software applications and has a small footprint on memory space 
and processing speed?  
Does anyone know of a similar project happening in Flag?  Anything would help.
 Thanks so much for 
your consideration.  I will gladly accept emails from anyone interested in 
responding.

Brandon Doss
Instrumentation Specialist
brandon.doss at nau.edu
928.523.7058

Northern Arizona University
Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry
PO Box 5698
Flagstaff, AZ 86011