Recommended Distro for a Gateway 3018gz

[MasterNetra]

My sister in law has a Gateway 3018gz, Ubuntu 10.04 and derivatives don't get past the loading screen. (well ok it goes to the black screen and just stops entirely, cd stops spinning and just sits doing nothing.) Same with Puppy 5, Mandriva loads eventually but doesn't seem to have the wireless driver for the laptop's Broadcom 4306, Haven't tried Fedora 13 or Open Suse, and such yet. Gonna try Open Suse next. I'm hoping someone knows a good distro thats friendly to computer illiterates. (I'm the closest thing she has to a Linux Guru, and obviously I am not one). Oh and the computer overheats even with a coolpad between 1-2 hours. Its a piece of crap but she can't afford a new computer at this time even a $370 laptop from HP.
Any recommendations for this particular laptop, it had Mint 8 prior but sound didn't work and she didn't really like the menu, too complicated.

[MasterNetra]

Really? No one? Trying Suse but first attempt failed installer got around 90% and died for no apparent reason.

[BARlotta]

Did you ever figure this out. I am oddly in the exact situation (trying to get this antiquated laptop to work for my sister)

[NCLI]

Try the minimal cd (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD).

[BARlotta]

Try the minimal cd (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD).

That is how I installed but it won't actually boot up post-installation. It briefly shows the ubuntu splash screen and then just goes to black.

[Austin25]

When in doubt of hardware, DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/).

[NCLI]

That is how I installed but it won't actually boot up post-installation. It briefly shows the ubuntu splash screen and then just goes to black.

Try installing something more lightweight then, like DSL.

[BARlotta]

DSL works (at least in live mode)...not sure that this would be a good distro for my sister to use though.

[drawkcab]

There are a lot of smaller Linux distros that you can try besides DSL and Puppy:

AntiX (Mepis)
Tiny Core
Slitaz

Basically you're going to have to try a bunch of distros and see what works. It seems like that machine should be able to run with a larger distro, especially if it ran Mint 8. Broadcom is a pain in the butt, no doubt and might require some tweaking. Also, there's no shame in running an older version of Ubuntu if it works with your hardware.

[BARlotta]

Also, there's no shame in running an older version of Ubuntu if it works with your hardware.

Mint 8 is based on Ubuntu 9.10 right? Maybe I'll give that a try.

[Frogs Hair]

Peppermint or Peppermint Ice.

[cariboo]

Try starting the Lucid Live CD using the nomodeset option, press F6 to see the menu.

[BARlotta]

Try starting the Lucid Live CD using the nomodeset option, press F6 to see the menu.

Using the minimal CD I was able to get Ubuntu installed, it just won't boot.

[BARlotta]

I installed 9.10 and it works had some trouble with sound which I fixed (see this post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9748637))

Edit: set link to actual post not thread

[drawkcab]

Nice work.

As an afterthought, maybe you could've tried to install some version of knoppix.

[BARlotta]

Nice work.

Thanks! Still wish I could have gotten Lucid working but it should meet my sister's "browsing" needs.

[MasterNetra]

Thanks! Still wish I could have gotten Lucid working but it should meet my sister's "browsing" needs.

Yea, but Karmic isn't bad either. And its great you figured how to get sound working. :)