RP: faster booting

I have been working on streamlining the bootup on the ARM boards. I am aiming for 20 seconds on the Raspberry Pi -- that is a target, not there yet! It is an optimistic target, not sure if I can get there.

I haven't had much time the last few days, mostly due to doing things for elderly relatives.

Today I setup wireless broadband Internet on a laptop for one of my elderly relatives, a person who has never used a computer before. She was recently given an old laptop, which has Windows 2000 on it. I didn't put Puppy on it, left Windows 2000 as-is, just installed the latest Firefox and Adobe Flash players that work with Windows 2000.

I took her to the local shopping centre and bought an Optus Prepaid Mobile Broadband usb stick, for AU$69.95. Even though it specified at least Windows XP required, I ignored that -- it installed ok and runs fine on Windows 2000.

We were quickly online and surfing the web. It was interesting watching someone using a mouse for the very first time. She is in her early-80s and her hands are not so nimble.

I took her through all the steps, but I am wondering if she will be too scared to turn it on on her own. I'll pop back in a day or too and see what has happened.

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Comments

Re: elderly relatives
Username: rhadon
Please think about games and educational programs for kids. A very good training for the mind, reaction and for coordinating eyes and hand. And last not least, it's fun. It can be very helpful. My mom (at this time ~85) loved crashing cars in a car race (lol). ~Rolf

mouse for oldies
Username: ozsouth
"My father-in-law first used a pc at 89 (2005), using DSL linux (I'd only just seen Puppy then). I found that 'click-then-enter' was easier for old hands than double-click (single-click often has things accidentally opened or dragged).

Silver surfing
Username: lobster
"Tried this on a couple of silver surfers with success http://www.bbc.co.uk/computertutor/computertutorone/ another resource http://www.eldy.eu/

Already Fast
Username: Raffy
"I've tested SAP6 alpha4 last night on a DVI-capable monitor and was impressed with its boot-up speed (at second boot). I was using class 10 SD card. It will be great to have PPLOG working out of the box in SAP6 - can be a great server for schools! Thanks, Barry.

Tags: general