Laptop Distro? any recommendations?

[Screwdriver0815]

Hi @ all,

in the last couple of days I came to the conclusion that I have to put something new on the Laptop.

Currently I have Mandriva 2009.1 Spring installed and it does a pretty good job but somehow it has slowed down a bit since the install and it also has some issues when the system has to work under heavy load.

Anyway, I also thought that KDE is not so good for the Laptop as the display and the resolution is smaller. It is a little bit loaded in screen-space-terms.

So now I am a little bit confused, if I really should turn back to Jaunty (Gnome) or if I should give another distro a shot?
Thats why I wanted to know if some of you maybe have or know about a perfect Laptop-Distro?

my previous thoughts:

- Fedora: maybe a little bit too bleeding edge

- Jaunty: I had it already... its not bad but I have to switch back all the notifications stuff to the old status, still it is one of the best in my eyes...

- Intrepid Ibex: has this annoying flicker bug (nvidia driver)

What about Debian Lenny? Does anybody know if it runs out of the box on a Lenovo 3000 N200? How is it with the firmware for wireless LAN (Intel wireless card)?

[cptrohn]

I used Kubuntu 8.10 with my Compaq a900 until jaunty released... after jaunty released it seemed that kubuntu wasn't very stable on my machine for some reason, (lots of crashes and hang-ups and it also didn't recognize any tags of files that I had ripped into flac) I backed everything up and then wiped the HD and did a clean install of a straight ubuntu 9.04 and have been extremely happy with it since then... the eye candy with Kubuntu was very nice imho, but a straight 9.04 install has just been so rock solid for me that I am staying put with it now.

[liamnixon]

Debian Lenny isn't bad. I'm not sure if it will work out of the box on your computer, but you can try it. Fedora 10 was also quite good, but they're notorious for having unstable odd-numbered releases.

Really, the 'best' distro just depends on what you do with it, along with your preferences for how you like your system configured. For example, I do audio work with Ardour, so I like to have lots multimedia applications handy in the repositories, and I don't like my system to be too automatic (I have control issues ;) ), so I tend to use stuff like Slackware (although there's not much of anything in the slackpkg repo, really).

[SuperSonic4]

Arch might work although it may be too bleeding edge even without [testing] enabled.

xubuntu is not a bad distro but my knowledge of xfce is lacking

[kamitsukai]

Why not try Linux Mint? based on Ubuntu with a Customised gnome menu and in my opinion a very nice laptop distro =]

also comes in kde & fluxbox remixes

[RiceMonster]

What about Debian Lenny? Does anybody know if it runs out of the box on a Lenovo 3000 N200? How is it with the firmware for wireless LAN (Intel wireless card)?

If you have an intel wireless card, I wouldn't worry about that. The Linux support is probably the best around.

[Pogeymanz]

I don't think any distros are really any better for laptops than any other. You might as well just stick with what you like already unless you'd really like to experiment.

Like you mentioned, WM/DE is much more important in your case. Have you ever tried Openbox? Now might be the time.

I have used Debian Lenny, and it's fine. Debian and Ubuntu are not all that different, and they are not up-to-date enough for me (I'm used to Arch now), so I've been trying to make Fedora my "easy distro" of choice.

[Screwdriver0815]

hmm... I'm still confused...

But yes, its right, I forgot to say what I want to do with the system. It should be a normal, average computer, for any purpose but nothing special. Just a Joe Average computer.

So I organise my photos with it, take my music with me (on it), some mail, some videos... a little bit of everything.

It should be flawless too.

Maybe I get back to Ubuntu Jaunty then... OpenSuse... I tried it recently and I can not get into this one-click-install stuff. I don't know why... maybe I am too stupid.

What is this openbox-stuff? Is it just a window-manager like Gnome and can it be installed on an existing Ubuntu system (with gnome previously installed)?

[SuperSonic4]

It should be flawless too.

You'll be lucky, nothing is flawless.


Openbox is a window manager whereas Gnome is a DE which is a window manager plus a load of apps. The idea of openbox is to provide the very basics and then you, the user, adds the apps.

Fluxbuntu is a good one to look at IMO

[Screwdriver0815]

You'll be lucky, nothing is flawless.


Openbox is a window manager whereas Gnome is a DE which is a window manager plus a load of apps. The idea of openbox is to provide the very basics and then you, the user, adds the apps.

Fluxbuntu is a good one to look at IMO
ah... yes, Ubuntu Jaunty is pretty flawless on this Laptop. ;)

so is openbox something like Nautilus in Gnome, but responsible for the whole desktop? :confused: looks like too much effort for a Laptop :)

[linuxguymarshall]

#!CRUNCHBang Linux. Based off of Ubuntu. Best distro I have come across that "just works" right out of the box (The best distro that dosen't work would be Arch)

EDIT : #! (Crunchbang) also uses Openbox as that seems to be a discussion you all are having

[linuxguymarshall]

Crunchbang has exactly the same hardware support as Ubuntu.

Maybe because it IS Ubuntu...


He wasn't looking for hardware support distro, he is looking for usability

[RiceMonster]

ah... yes, Ubuntu Jaunty is pretty flawless on this Laptop. ;)

so is openbox something like Nautilus in Gnome, but responsible for the whole desktop? :confused: looks like too much effort for a Laptop :)

Nautilus is a file browser. Metacity is the window manager in GNOME. Also, openbox isn't any more work for a laptop than a desktop. I've used it on both. However, if you don't want to go through lots of setup, customizing, and don't want to edit text files, don't use Openbox. If you want speed, low resource usage, and configurability, Openbox is the way to go.

[ohbuntu]

How about Arch? It allows you to nail the setup down to the exact requirements without any of the fluff that's generally associated with heavy distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva.

You also get a choice of whatever DE/WM you need, unlike Ubuntu or Mandriva that push you in a specific direction without necessary allowing the user to choose and try different distros. Sure you can remove Gnome from Ubuntu and replace it with KDE or XFCE but that's pretty much what Arch does right from the start.

As mentioned in my sig, I have one laptop running KDE on Arch and the other Gnome on Arch and I have yet to find a single piece of hardware that doesn't work exactly as it should.

[Pogeymanz]

I only suggested Openbox because you mentioned that KDE is a little too "big" for you screen. Openbox has pretty, yet unobtrusive window decorations and allows you to customize your keyboard shortcuts to do pretty much anything you could do with the mouse.

Since you don't want to spend time configuring, maybe look at Crunchbang Linux, which is just Ubuntu with Openbox already configured for you instead of Gnome/KDE/XFCE.

I don't think Arch is the right suggestion here. He wants things to work pretty quickly, it seems. Arch is a pretty involved distro. Though, if you have some spare time and would like an adventure, I HIGHLY recommend checking out Arch! :D

[billgoldberg]

Fedora 11 does well on my laptop.

[SuperSonic4]

How about Arch? It allows you to nail the setup down to the exact requirements without any of the fluff that's generally associated with heavy distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva.

You also get a choice of whatever DE/WM you need, unlike Ubuntu or Mandriva that push you in a specific direction without necessary allowing the user to choose and try different distros. Sure you can remove Gnome from Ubuntu and replace it with KDE or XFCE but that's pretty much what Arch does right from the start.

As mentioned in my sig, I have one laptop running KDE on Arch and the other Gnome on Arch and I have yet to find a single piece of hardware that doesn't work exactly as it should.

If Fedora is too bleeding each then him then arch would be even worse?

[michaelzap]

I just got a new (fast and full-featured) laptop and I'm happily running Jaunty on it. On my netbook, however, I run #! (Crunchbang), which is a bit peppier and uses less screen real estate. On older laptops I've had great success with Dreamlinux (XFCE), which is based on Debian Lenny and is a whole lot more responsive than Xubuntu in my experience.

[ohbuntu]

If Fedora is too bleeding each then him then arch would be even worse?

Well, therein lies the beauty of an Arch installation. Once he gets it up and running (which he should be able to achieve with a bit of preparation up-front), he doesn't have to keep updating it every day or even every month. He can update after he's achieved a certain level of confidence and mastered pacman and yaourt. Start off with a bare bones installation such as KDEmod-lite to avoid unnecessary clutter and add the extra applications as necessary.

About Arch being perceived as this raging bull, I'm not really sure if that's true. Sure people say that Arch is difficult to master and is not recommended but let's face it, didn't people start with Ubuntu at some point in time? Ubuntu is a major jump for a vast majority of people used to Windows and many have made that jump, so I see no reason why anyone can't go in with a positive mindset and jump from Ubuntu to Arch.

[Screwdriver0815]

I think I will try this Openbox and therefore Crunchbang. Maybe it works for me, if not, then I will go back on "start" and take the "boring normal" Jaunty.

Arch is (I think) too much for me, because I think I have too less knowledge. And I want to have the Laptop running in a reasonable short time.
Maybe I try Arch on the desktop when I have time because I got a little bit curious about it.

Thank you very much for your suggestions!

[RiceMonster]

I like and use Arch, but I don't get it why someone always has to recommend it regardless of what the OP wants. Doesn't sound like it's right for the OP.

[michaelzap]

If your laptop feels a bit underpowered running Ubuntu, you might also give the Dreamlinux Live CD a try. It's really quite a bit snappier than Xubuntu, and since it's based on Debian Lenny you can apply pretty much all of your Ubuntu knowledge and packages to it. I use and like #! a lot, but OpenBox isn't for everyone (for example, I probably wouldn't be able to just loan my #! laptop to someone else without having to explain how it works).

[Screwdriver0815]

If your laptop feels a bit underpowered running Ubuntu, you might also give the Dreamlinux Live CD a try. It's really quite a bit snappier than Xubuntu, and since it's based on Debian Lenny you can apply pretty much all of your Ubuntu knowledge and packages to it. I use and like #! a lot, but OpenBox isn't for everyone (for example, I probably wouldn't be able to just loan my #! laptop to someone else without having to explain how it works).
no, the Laptop is not underpowered. It has plenty of power I think: Intel Pentium Dual Core 2x 2Ghz, 2 Gb RAM, Nvidia 7300 GO graphics... its quite okay.

I just wanted something... I don't know... not different, but what fits to a Laptop. Because I feel that Mandriva and also KDE just doesn't work nicely on a Laptop - my opinion.
I already had Jaunty on this Laptop and so I thought... maybe something new... or different (???) would be nice.

But just a question @ all regarding Crunchbang: is it based on Intrepid Ibex? Because the filename says "... 8.10...."?

[DeadSuperHero]

I have a somewhat underpowered Compaq Presario R3000, and regular Ubuntu Jaunty works pretty well on it. I had to use Ndiswrapper and Ndis-gtk to get the wifi working, but it's really a good little system for this computer. Once I get my RAM upgraded, I'll probably think about switching to Kubuntu Karmic, since the KDE 4.3 packages I use on the desktop machine in my house is sweeeeet.

[michaelzap]

I just wanted something... I don't know... not different, but what fits to a Laptop... maybe something new... or different (???) would be nice.
#!
I just went through the same process when I got this new laptop, but in the end I decided that Jaunty was pretty much perfect and I didn't need "different" after all.



But just a question @ all regarding Crunchbang: is it based on Intrepid Ibex? Because the filename says "... 8.10...."?The latest official #! release is in fact based on Intrepid, but you can find an unofficial Jaunty release in the forums (which is what I used) as well as instructions for starting from a minimal Ubuntu install and making it #!.

[RiceMonster]

edit: wrong thread. nvm

[mmix]

http://freshmeat.net/projects/jayos/

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

i have the same laptop. and i dual boot lunar linux+freebsd on it. the wireless is intel, 3945 chipset, which has rock solid support in the linux kernel. i have no problems with it with freebsd as well. so i am sure you don't have to worry about that at all.