I would go with Ubuntu, linuxmint or some such desktop distro today. Not so much because it's a better OS or will be supported longer than XP but because when you're donating computers you have to expect that they will end up in the hands of people who can't necessarily afford to buy software to do a lot of things and by default XP comes with 0 extras and won't necessarily know how/where to fine open source options for windows. In this light your typical linux distribution comes with software that will do a little bit of everything from office/word processing/whatever to editing graphics and even a few fun games for kids with plenty more for free in the repositories. I did this for several years in central Nebraska. In all I gathered up several hundred PC's from local businesses that were going to discard them and refurbished them and installed a user friendly linux distribution (at the time I was using Lindows/Linspire) and never had a complaint or even a call back with anything other than a thank you. Most distros like ubuntu, mint, fedora etc today are just as easy to use as windows out of the box even for a new user poking around trying to figure things out.

So I have a mid2010 macbook pro and I've been running lion since preview 2 and have never experienced a kernel panic ......

As someone who has been responsible for the architecture, design and security of many of the IT products and services that you consume every single day of your life AND a U.S. Air force veteran I can tell you first hand that you are absolutely ignorant and know nothing of which you speak.

There are several reasons for building in Las Vegas - -Electricity is very, very cheap and being consumed so steadily by so many entities that it's easy to look "green" in this environment because the datacenter electric consumption is dwarfed by the use of all of those mega casinos, hotels, attractions, etc by so much that the IT use just looks like a blip on the radar. -It really does require less energy to condition/cool air in the desert than it does in most of the rest of the country. This is actually for a couple of reasons 1.The facilities are effectively big caves .. they are several feet thick cement walls that are light colored on the outside. They are so well insulated that the outdoor heat doesn't have a chance of making it inside. 2. The humidity in this area is naturally so low that no additional energy is required when cooling the air to dehumidify it. Imagine being in virginia or pennsylvania where the humidity is 60-80% outdoors. Half of that humidity has to be pulled from the air and siphoned off 3. they use strict hot/cold aisle separation where the whole facility becomes a plenum and duct system and the super-heated air is just ducted directly outside. The racks sit on cool cement floors and cold air pours directly into the front of the equipment and the air that runs through the equipment goes directly up through the roof duct system where it is contained and exhausted. 4. with the addition and application of simple evaporative cooling that is greatly accelerated in ultra arid climates you can save nearly 30% of the cost of using gas compression cooling only.

1. It sounds like you have some problems with the military in this country and people exercising their constitutional rights? 2. I think your perception is a little off. I worked their for a while and none of them openly carry real guns. They are strapped with and walk around carrying tasers not actual guns. Actual guns are available but they are not carried on patrol by the security staff. 3. I worked there as a customer for half a decade under sun microsystems and then an employee for a while after that and the staff was never anything less than helpful and willing to bend over backwards to help any of the customers. The security staff are cordial but firm as it should be. They are all (every single one of them) are nice guys and not one of them are "alpha male psychopaths" They simply have rules and directives that are imposed on the facility as a matter of policy and it is their job to make sure that everyone and everyones property stays safe and secure. 4. They have a big responsibility as every cage in almost every part of all of their facilities across the valley is filled mostly with what would be considered the most high profile targets for any data thief

This part of the story is actually true. (I worked there for a short while after the sun microsystems buyout by oracle was finalized and most of the grid/cloud business unit staff was cut) They have a very extensive network of dark fiber as well as on-premise peering available in their data centers with most of the tier 1 isp's in this country

Sorry but you are very, very wrong. The las vegas valley is completely full of huge high tech data centers collocating it services for companies all over the country (including the US federal government) Not even counting any of the external colo that's happening there where do you think the IT infrastructure is that supports all of those mega-casinos? These Datacenters! Sun microsystems had "Sun Cloud" facilities in three separate NAP data centers including the supernap and nearly every large it org that you've ever heard of has a presence in their facilities as well. I moved to las vegas because I traveled so much to and from there working on these projects that I never saw my family.

http://switchnap.com/pages/tech-specs/thermal-scif.php for several years they have been using what they call "T-scif" (thermal separate compartment in facility) to do what google is showing here for us (sun/oracle) for many years.

black cds labeled "Music" from a few years ago came with this tax pre-installed. That is why they cost 1000% more than regular non "music" cdrs ... the piracy was implied.

Oh .. .and where I live it began snowing earlier than ever ... mid october and is now experiencing the coldest temperatures in recorded history.

Climate science is nothing but voodoo/interpretation of existing data. The truth is that we only have 50 years of semi-reliable data that proves that the climate changes over time. It gets warmer, it gets colder, but none, not one of these people has been able to reliably prove that humans have anything to do with climate change.

take your ipv6 and get stuffed hippy! .... you probably drive a prius too!!!! The widespread use of 1918 space has virtually eliminated any need for ipv6 on the public internet .... if you NEED ipv6 its either because you just got your ccna and you're trying to prove something or you just read network computing from 1900 and found out that it's the next big thing. ... it's adoption far outweighs that of elective colonoscopy but really who want's something shoved in their arse ;)

Spend some time on Jinx.com or something and find some scary looking hack/phreak stickers ... you'll look hardcore and remember the size to goodness ration is inversely proportional when you are talking about geek gadgets.