.
Things I liked:
Reasonably fast server brings in 937 Mb iso in 10-15 min.
Universal LiveUSB installer easily makes LiveUSB.
ALL my laptop hardware recognized and drivers provided
....except for internal closed-source wifi.
Easily sets up open-source external wifi.
Xfce desktop neat, intuitive & responsive.
Uses Ubuntu whisker menu and includes a LibreMenu menu editor.
Network mgr working well, given wifi drivers.
FF is 25; LO is 4.2; amd64 kernel is 3.13.
Boots to browser on-line in ~60 sec; shut-down < 5 sec.
GUI makes it easy to disable my touchpad which disrupts typing.
Things I didn't like:
Inefficient choices in initial 937 Mb base configuration.
937 Mb iso doesn't include closed-source ttf-mscorefonts, Broadcom drivers & flash;
....also doesn't include open-source LibreOffice, Geany & tzdata.
Configuring 2 Gb of persistence took a really long time.
LibreOffice took a long time to bring in as well.
*Apt-get needed to install tzdata; ntp updates desktop to local time on reboot.
Mousepad editor poorer than leafpad, much poorer than gedit IMO.
Bug 1: whisker menu editor doesn't save (or properly display) liveUSB favorites;
....Mint 16 doesn't have this problem with favorites panel display
Bug 2: does not recognize closed-source drivers brought in
....nor indicate correct status of devices using closed-source drivers.
LibreMenu requires a wholesale upgrade of gtk+ and python3 infrastructure.
Things I don't understand:
Why screensaver set only to blank screen.
Why Ubuntu Software Center rather than Synaptic.
*Maybe because I didn't understand Ubuntu Software Center usage as root.
IBM Power 720 POWER7 00E6516 3.6GHz CPU 64GB RAM Server
$209.98
IBM Power S822 12-Bay Server System Power8 Core 3.42Ghz DVD-Rom Drive 64GB No HD
$399.99
IBM 7944AC1 System x3550 M3 Server 1*Intel Xeon X5650 2.67GHz 4GB SEE NOTES
$27.25
$16000.00
IBM Power S822 8284-22A 12SFF Power8 3.89GHz 6-Core 64GB RAM No Bezel/HDD Server
$319.99
IBM SYSTEM x3200 M2 Server - HDD wiped, No OS
$75.00
IBM Lenovo X3650 M5 2U 8x 2.5” CTO Rack Server – 2x HS, 2x 750W
$199.00
IBM BladeCenter HS21 7995 AC1 Server - 1x Xeon E5440 2GB RAM - NO HDDs
$22.43
IBM System X3500 M4 7383AC1 (E5-2650 v2 2.60GHz - 192GB RAM - M2000 - NO OS/HDD)
$294.92
IBM SYSTEM x3650 M4 Xeon E5-2609 2.40GHZ 16GB DDR3-1066MHZ 2x 550W PSU TESTED
$109.95