[MLUG] computers for Ecuadorian family

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

My wife is from Quito, Ecuador, and her (far from wealthy) parents, 
siblings and their kids still live there.  We would like to buy computers 
for them and I'm trying to come up with a good way to do this such that:

(1) The computers will be respectable, current machines,
(2) they won't cost too much money, and
(3) shipping costs will be kept to a minimum.

I will be going to Ecuador one of these days and I think I'll bring parts 
with me and assemble the machines there (probably 4 or 5 of them).  I'm 
hoping that I can buy main boards, drives and such here, but buy the cases 
and monitors in Quito.  I think I can fit the parts into a carry-on bag 
and thereby avoid any S/H costs.

Any thoughts on that plan?

The next issue is software.  I would love for them to run Linux or a dual 
boot system.  Everything has to be in Spanish.  Do all Linux OSs allow for 
Spanish language installations?  Same for Windows XP?

If I could set them up with Linux only, they might not be happy.  Any 
views on this?  I think some of them would be fine -- email, web, word 
processing -- but the users who want to get into downloading photos from a 
digital camera or doing video editing might have some trouble.  What do 
you think?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can share.  I'm not sure when I'll 
actually do this, maybe this summer, but I wanted to start planning now.

Best,

Mike

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