Hi

I'm planning to install Linux (probably Mandrake) for someone who has very limited computer experience and a pay as you go dial-up account. I'm looking for advice on the best compromise regarding updates. Concerns are:

1. Slow rate and high cost of dial-up mean that applying all updates is not feasable.

2. Once any updates have been applied, dependancies may mean that additional applications cannot be loaded entirely from the distribution media but require downloaded packages (which may be large).

Has anyone deployed Mandrake (or any other distro) under these circumstances? Can you suggest the best compromise between security and practicality? My ideas so far:

1. Don't apply any updates. With a dial up account and full firewall true risk is probably low. This means further apps can be installed from the distribution media without dependancy problems.

2. Regularly apply all security updates but no others, to keep the downloads to a minimum. Hopefully this would also minimise the times that dependancy issues arise when installing additional applications from the distribution media.

3. Not sure how feasable this one is: Use my broadband connection to create myself a local update source by mirroring the update directory on one of the mirrors, then supply regular update CD(s) to the user - say once a month.

I'd really appreciate any comments and suggestions as I would like to get this PC set up soon. Please bear in mind that the user is not computer literate so any strategy involving making decisions about individual packages to download is probably a non-starter.

Thanks

Andy B