old hardware, mirrored repositories, and sundry other questions

[Matt Price]

Hello Ubuntu world,

This is my first foray ito Ubuntu; right now I run Debian Sid on 3
machines, all workstations.  I'm about to teach a
build-your-own-computer-and-install-linux class to a group of 20 or so
residents of a local housing project, and since I'm familiar iwth
DDebian, have decided on Ubuntu as the main distribution to use.  I've
evden got a stack of warty cd's (they look great!) to distribute.  But
since I don't run Ubuntu myself I'm a little anxious, and thought I'd
get y'all to reassure me that everything's gonna be ok...

1) old hardware:  we're goingto be using donated hardware, I reckon
pentiu-class but not uch faster.  Are there going to be issues withth
standard Ubuntu kernel (like, maybe no APM support?)  Other issues I
should be aware of?  I imagine Gnome will run pretty slow on such
machines -- is there an xfce4 in ununto somewhere?

2) mirroring a repository:  the classroom we're in won't have an
internet connection, but I have a couple of ethernet switches and a
spare 80-gig hard drive.  Would it be practical to mirror the ubuntu
repositories on that drive?  Is there a guide to this somewhere?  

3) If this project works out, I think it will be pretty good PR --
these folks will mostly be refugee applicants from e.g. Somalia, some
of the middle-aged -- is there somewhere I can post an account of our
rirproaring success?

Anyway, looking forward to making the switch to Ubuntu!

Matt


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Matt Price	    matt.price at utoronto.ca
History Department, University of Toronto
(416) 978-2094
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