[ale] Niece's laptop

[Dow_Hurst]

My niece has a IBM Thinkpad 770Z that had Win98 on it.  She does mainly AIM messaging and watches DVDs.  I think she browses the web some but this is thru AOL's security enabled browser that blocks most inappropriate content.  The DVD player stopped working and the machine would lock up alot.  I offered to put Linux on it and set it up for her.  Right now, I have SUSE 10.1 on it, DVDs will play, and firefox runs.  Of course it is slow, but it is useable.  However, the concern is the lack of any oversite on the browsing of the web.  The machine is pushed to the max just running 10.1 and KDE.  I tried XFCE but it is so plain that I am sure the more usual graphical environment of KDE is what my neice will use.  How can I filter out bad sites as well as AOL security center would?  Can the machine manage that and get updated on it's own somehow?  Is there a service or site that does what AOL's software does for protecting kids while browsing the web?

Kopete will manage online messaging just fine.  Abiword is fast enough for word processing for school.  Firefox is great for browsing.  I even had a wifi card from Edimax that will work well with SUSE.

The machine is a PII at 366MHz with 128Mb RAM.  Has a small 10Gb hard drive that is a bit noisy.  She earned the money and bought the machine herself.  I hate to say to her that I can't help and I need to put Win98 back on it with AOL's software just to please my sister and brother-in-law.  Any ideas on what would be best?

There is a Linksys wifi WRT54G router in the house she will connect thru.  I believe there is a service from Linksys for filtering web pages available there.  I'd love comments.  Even a new laptop as a gift would still need to have good filtering of web browsing.  I just can't plan on being able to manage the filter list manually as I don't have that kind of time or dedication!
Thanks,
Dow


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