Isn't this forum brilliant

[daveenty]

Been looking for another lappy as mine is on it's last legs.

Done all the usual geeky sites, looked round flea bay etc, and then decided to look on here.

Should have done this first...

I had two questions really: -

New or second hand? (asked by NiceCupOfTea)

What about throwing Linux onto it? (asked by theboyfold)

All my answers are now in these threads.

Just like to thank all those who answered the original questions, and I'm now going to be doing a lot more studying before I decide.

Quick question if I may?

It's primarily used for showing films (short training DVDs).
I'm assuming that Ubunto would have an application for this?

[TheLearner]

Yes/No.

Yes it has a movie player built-in.
No, it probably won't play straight out the box, you'll need to install the usual suspects in terms of CODEC's. So much like Windows in that respect

If using Ubuntu, a quickie way of doing all that is to install Automatix and tell it to install the CODEC's and it'll sort out everything for you

[daveenty]

Thanks Sarah.

Not used Linux for a long time (Mandrake v8 or 9 I think)

Will probably have a play when I get my laptop.

[TheLearner]

np. You're in for a shock them, the new kernels and Ubuntu in general... pretty much everything works with no faffing