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I just purchased a new laptop and I want to put linux on it but i don't know what distribution to use.
It is a 64 bit AMD mobile, with ATI graphics and a built in wireless card. 512 MB of memory and 80 Gb HD. I will be dual booting.
I'm currently running FC3 on my desktop which has been OK.
So the question is what is the best distribution out there for my new laptop?
I've heard some buzz about ubuntu..?? any comments?
My personal favorite is Mandriva. And it was recently certified for Intel's mobile Centrino chipset (not that it matters on your system). They started as a branch from Redhat a long time ago, and use rpm as the base package manager, but that's where the similarity ends. It is a very easy distribution to install, especially on laptops. I ran a test a couple of years ago (and it's improved dramatically since then), by giving my mother (fairly computer illiterate, although good in MS Word) an older laptop and installation cd's. She had it up and running on the internet in an hour, and was able to do some decent documents in the earlier version of Kword.
I am currently using an IBM t20 laptop for school, and it has a Broadcom wireless card. All I need to do is insert the card, and Mandriva automatically loads the ndiswrapper, and connects me to the campus network. Initial setup was a little more difficult as I had to download the Windows driver for the ndiswrapper and extract it using wine, but even that wasn't painful.
ubuntu has alot buzz for a reason, its really really easy to install and use! it autodetected and helped configure all my hardware (including intel wireless chipset) the interface is slick, and its apt-get system from debian is second to none.
of course theres a downside, so far ubuntu has been buggier for me than windows 98, and thats alot (although iv heard of people installing and using it w/o a single problem) ... if your experienced with linux the bugs shouldnt be too much a problem to deal with but if your experienced with linux ud prbably rather have slackware debian or fedora.
Im still giving ubuntu the benefit of the doubt. I say give it a try, and if your lucky youll be amaized at how cool ubuntu is, if not you could just go back to whatever distro ur used to.
It is hard to reccomend distros to people because you don't know their tastes and what they want out of it. Are you a KDE or Gnome man? are you going to dual boot the system and what is the system going to be used for?
Personally I'd recomend KDE over Gnome, keeping this in mind I'd reccomend the following:
I'd recommend you Arch linux. It works like a charm. It's a sort of mix between the best of debain, freebsd, slackware and gentoo. I suggest you try it, you won't regret
Ubuntu, FC, DEBIAN...? Nah. No good expierience here. My suggestion is Gentoo. The one and only. Fast, reliable, stable , did I mention fast? And the fab portage system... mmm... you have to try it. If you're sorta n00bish, then try the Kororaa method os the Gentoo Graphical Installer.
The main trouble I have had with laptop distros has been getting the ACPI to work. Investigating, I discover it seldom works properly under windows either. Is it just me or are the manufacturers getting a tad overconfident of the consumers ignorance?
I am planning to buy a laptop, I am confused on choosing the right distribution. I have short listed Mandriva,FC4,Suse,Debian. I am presently running FC4 both on my servers and desktops. I dont have any xperiece with other distros except for FC4. I am planning to use bluetooth and wireless lan. What Should I settle for?
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