My struggle with getting small Linux distros installed on my laptop

[Howard Gibson]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 21:29:57 -0400
sciguy-Lmt0BfyYGMw at public.gmane.org wrote:

> Hello
> 
> For anyone with an HP TX2 Touchsmart laptop, I had a lot of time on my
> hands the past couple of days and attempted to try several live linux
> distros with a mind to install my best choice on to a Kingston 32GB USB
> stick. I ended up choosing Mint/Xfce despite a speed penalty. It did,
> after all, recognise the lion's share of devices on my laptop.
> 
> I burned 11 distros on to 11 DVDs, and scored them based on some criteria
> I thought of "off the cuff":
> Wireless
> Touch
> Stylus
> Camera
> Sound
> Disk recognition
> Office software
> Ease of use (subjective scale 0(easy)-5(difficult))
> Detection and use of Network printer
> Speed (subjective scale 1(slow) - 5(fast))

   It has been a while since I have installed Linux on a low powered computer.  I figure I have no problems loading X11, a small window manager and a fast, convenient email tool.  Browsers work fine on most websites.  The brick wall I always slammed into was the office suite. 

   LaTeX, Emacs, and Gnumeric will get the job done if you communicate through pieces of paper and through websites.  The moment you have to work with Microsoft Office users, you are into Open/Libre Office.  Full features office suites are bloatware.  Any thoughts on this?

-- 
Howard Gibson 
hgibson-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org
howard.gibson-PadmjKOQAFnQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org 
jhowardgibson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
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