Since the OP is supposedly looking for a machine for his sister, he should start there and ask what she wants it to do. In all likelihood, she will never want to customise it, so he should be looking at the simplest or most reliable way of fitting the tool to the job. Sure, there might be issues like bulk or styling to take into account, but again that needs her input. Enough with the patronising.

I first played with Mandrake in about 2000 (or thereabouts) and sort of liked it as a variant of RedHat, with a few bells and whistles to make it easier for the newbie. However, I was more than happy to dump it in favour of a return to Slackware, which has only comparatively recently been replaced by Arch Linux on most of my machines.

Fair enough. I have an old (1930s) gold Omega that belonged to my maternal grandfather, which Granny wore for some 50+ years after he was shot down over the Mediterranean during WWII. I never met the original owner, but the freight of both family history and quality of workmanship make this thing so much more than a toy.

Isn't that meant as a challenge? Like, for instance, tossing out that API and using Assembly? You should be able to get anything worth doing in less than 1kB.

Damn, kids these days have no sense of adventure...

Setting aside *nix for the moment, one could always embrace your fundamental and innermost nerdiness and check out some of the offerings at The Unemployed Philosophers Guild. (I have the Leonardo and Dali watches...)

You may be right. Until quite recently, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a Sony/Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro where I had anticipated that the hardware keyboard would be a plus, but I was pathetically grateful when the machine died and I was able to replace it with a (Samsung) device where I could actually see the keypad.

Oh, and yes, I am nearly 50, so eyesight is an issue. But FWIW, the Galaxy Nexus is an awesome phone, and I'm really happy with it.

I don't know how this works for USians, but if you're a Telstra customer, your telco specifically states in their TOS that they have no problem with tethering.

However, my last Android phone (Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro) was a POS with locked-down firmware that neither the manufacturer nor telco had any intention of upgrading, so I was stuck with no tethering for a while. But, my new Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Android version 4.x) has native tethering that works well, and (Yippee!!) Telstra hasn't felt the need to fill the machine up with crapware that I need to root the device to get rid of. Wonders never cease...

What strikes me as a bit sick (or at least sad) is that anyone might feel this project is a good use of their time. I can think of no reason why a skype user need be legitimately stalked in this way except for purposes of law enforcement, and those authorities already have resources at their disposal.

So what's the current exchange rate for dog money?

I know this is off-topic, but I never thought any kind of acupuncture was real until a few years ago, when I had it done (by way of a freebie extra offered by my physiotherapist) for a shoulder injury.

Regardless of my total non-belief in the effectiveness of the procedure, the effects were immediate, long-lasting and undeniable. I don't have any rigorous explanation as to why poking holes in someone should make them feel better, but whatever works...