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Author Topic: Linux Distros  (Read 1163 times)

roo_ster

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Linux Distros
« on: July 07, 2006, 08:41:20 AM »
Howdy:

I am about to get a replacement laptop (HP/Compaq) from work.  I have decided that I am going to install a linux distro on it, due to my job requirements (Not that big a deal at my work to use non-MS OS).  My work-arounds are getting to be less & less viable as I stress them (Cygwin, Exceed, etc).

My default choice would be Fedora, probably Core 5, since it is the most current Fedora release.

Do any of you have linux laptop experience that might steer you to another distro?

Experience with:
Redhat 6.0-9.0, WS3
Fedora Core 1-4
Damn Small Linux
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roo_ster

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Iain

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« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2006, 09:05:56 AM »
I'll probably get a reputation as a fanboy for this - Ubuntu. Lots of stuff I've read suggests that it is one of the better options out there for hardware detection and the like. The online community (www.ubuntuforums.org) is big enough that it's likely that someone will have installed, or attempted to install, it on whatever machine you end up getting - http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=137 would be a good place to start research.

I've installed breezy on an ancient laptop, ultimately the specs were too poor (433 celeron, 96mb ram) but several things worked better than they did with the eventual win98 reinstall. Screen resolution was correct initially, and the sound worked, more than could be said for win98 until I went through the loft and found the drivers cd that came with the laptop. Dapper came out last month, I'm going to put that on a desktop one rainy evening.
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Nathaniel Firethorn

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« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2006, 09:18:43 AM »
I'm on Fedora Core 4. Works for me. Tried Ubuntu but couldn't get the print spooler to work properly.

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garrettwc

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« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2006, 11:59:34 AM »
FYI, HP has some laptops certified for use with Suse Linux. There is even a whitepaper on their website with detailed install instructions and lists of drivers you might need.
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mtnbkr

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« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2006, 01:11:25 PM »
Quote from: garrettwc
FYI, HP has some laptops certified for use with Suse Linux. There is even a whitepaper on their website with detailed install instructions and lists of drivers you might need.
FWIW, I use Suse on my server at home.  Installation was easy and it hasn't given me a bit of trouble in the 18months I've been using it.  

On laptops, I've mainly used Slackware and Redhat.  Both did what I wanted them to do, Slackware was less bloated, but this was back in the mid to late 90s.  

Chris
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lee n. field

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« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2006, 01:53:57 PM »
Ubuntu, or it's older and purer relative, Debian.
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client32

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« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2006, 03:09:27 PM »
I ran Fedora for a while.  It worked good on my laptop.  Currently, I'm using the enterprise edition because we have a few licenses at work.

The only thing that held me up was my lack of knowledge about ndiswrapper.  That is what finally allowed me to get the internal wireless to work.  Once I found that it existed, all went well.

There is probably more support for redhat and fedora than anything else.  Most of the time, if you type your problem in google, someone running redhat has an answer.
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Nick1911

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« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2006, 05:17:08 PM »
I am a fan of slackware.  Course, I only have a text-based install on a very old machine (75mhz Pent), but it works pretty darn fast for what I need it for (File storage, web server, and internet coffee machine server - (link) ).

It's headless, so I just SSH on in over the network when I need to do something on it.  Slackware has been nothing but fantastic even on older hardware like that.
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roo_ster

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« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2006, 06:52:48 PM »
Thanks for all the input.  I doubt I'll nail down my distro of choice until August.

I've been loking around at the various distros & Fedora/RH seem to be doing pretty well supporting laptop hardware, especially with Gnome's Network Manager (for WIFi).

I don't mind what some call "bloated."  I like lots of tools handy and am like a kid in a candy shop when I find a new one that helps me get work done.

I have put out a feeler to a friendly IT employee about getting HW specs for the upcoming laptop.  If I can get all my ducks & drivers in a row, I think that would help, some.
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roo_ster

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mtnbkr

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« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2006, 08:23:14 PM »
BTW, how is Exceed not working out for you?  Lots of folks use it as a large XServer type app with all their apps running in one large Exceed-based Unix desktop window.  Not many know that you can configure it to run each of those apps individually in it's own Windows "window" so that it uses fewer resources on the network and local machine.

Chris
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tyme

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« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2006, 07:09:45 PM »
Gentoo.

The Gentoo wiki and bug database have an incredible amount of information.  It's the best distro community I've ever seen.
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roo_ster

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« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2006, 03:13:59 AM »
mtnbkr:

I have used Exceed as both desktop emulator & as a xterm generator...and as a few other things. Most times, it does alright.

Unfotunately, even Exceed can not overcome network lag for some apps, especially some moderately-graphics intensive apps.  Sometimes, there is no substitute for running X locally.  Note: Exceed may very well be up to the task & it could be the fault of the several routers my connection must navigate.  It really doesn't matter to me, the end-user, though.  Either way, runing over the network is too cumbersome.

I currently work 4 different projects that have four different labs.  Lab-hopping to get something to run locally is starting to get old.
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roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
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