Best distro for a newb w/ an IBM thinkpad?
 

Alright so I’ve tinkered with linux before in the past but I’ve never really taken the time to master it as I have with windows over the years. Lately I’ve been thinking about putting linux on my thinkpad, but I remember last time I tried putting it on my laptop a couple years ago I had a lot of problems getting things to work properly, such as the wireless network connection ect ect. Now I’m not your average end user and I can figure things out pretty quickly, however I was wondering since it’s been so long since I’ve played around with the linux OS if you folks could recommend a distro that would take well to my laptop as well as be rather easy to use for someone with only a very basic knowledge of how the OS works.

Speaking as a know next to nothing newbie myself, I would recommend openSuSE but only after consulting the Hardware Database. LinuxQuestions is a great source of information, try searching this and other forums for what others using simular hardware had to say.

Simply MEPIS. I've got it on my T30. Works nice.

I feel that if you really are wanting to learn and get a good start on things, Slackware is best. That's if you are not scared to operate in console. It does have GUI capabilities, and together provides everything you need, including a challenge :)

I could say the same about Windows 98. I don't know about you, but "ease of use" ranks pretty high in choosing an operating system. That's why I'm running MEPIS—all the power of Debian with the ease of Mac OS X. (Well, almost.)

Cool thanks guys I'll look into some of those tonight. :)

I read somewhere recently that the new Ubunutu release was very successful with regards to hardware detection for laptops, so that might be a consideration also.

But make sure you look at www.linux-laptop.net. Thinkpads are usually pretty good for linux & there's a wealth of info there on how people have got round the problems which come up.


Paul Hardy
Wakefield UK

Another excellent resource for Linux on laptops is Tuxmobil http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

Good luck with it. As a T40 owner, I can highly recommend Thinkpads, as IBM is Linux-friendly