have you try - mandrake 10.1?
i've got powerpack DVD edition and it is great working. Just new kernel has to be configured

Here comes my FC3 plug

I've run Slack, Debian, RedHat (and now FC) on my laptops through the last few years. I agree that Slack is the best if you want to set-it-and-forget-it, but if you (as some of us do) enjoy tinkering the rapid update release cycle of FC3 can be fun.

I think the Yum package manager has really come along way and seems only to be getting better. Installation is also a breeze with FC3 (with probably <95% of systems I've installed on anway). I've found that just letting Yum chug along in the background generally leads to my computer running faster and looking better over time.

Anyway, I'm running a Dell Inspiron D600 with built in WiFi/blueooth and KDE 3.3.1. Everything except acpi suspend works perfectly. The same setup that took about 45 minutes to fully configure with FC3 took me the better part of a weekend with Slack 10, and I could never get everything working right with Debian, but then I grew up on RH : )

I think the big disadvantage to FC3 is also the rapid updates... Sometimes updates break stuff, but so many packages are thrown your way you often don't know where to start looking for the problem. New packages also have a nasty tendancy to overwrite custom settings/scripts (but that is getting much better). Also, frequent kernel updates are a pain if you run VMware and driverloader (as I do), but then you don't have to download EVERY kernel update. You also have to prune usless things (like stupid GUI bootup) that get installed by default, as FC3 will become a bloated beast if you let it.

Overall, in my experience, I think the bests things about FC3 are:

Excellent power managment (sans ACPI susepnd capabilities of course)
Touchpad patches included in stock kernel
Fantastic networking support (however Python-based network config GUI has been buggy since RH7 or so)
Built-in Bluetooth support
RPM/Yum package management
Excellent automatic hardware detection/removal (usually Kudzu takes care of everything)
Flawless out-of-the-box DVD/CD burning
Flawless out-of-the-box audio support


Likewise, the best things about Slack are:

Uber-fast and robust installation (no fancy GUIs to break)
Bare-bones out-of-the-box setup allows for lots of tweaking and customizations
Excellent and well informed on-line community
Sound networking support
Small footprint

For me FC3 is the best laptop distro and runs great on my old Dell P3 850 / 512MB / 40GB RAM as well as my new Latitude... I've never run Mandrake, but everyone I know who has ultimately wound up with FC3 or Slack. In the end it seems to boil down to an underlying philosophy; lean and mean versus big and flashy.

Good discussion. My father is giving me his Sony VAIO XG700 soon and I'm going to have a new linux machine to play with. I'm thinking about installing SuSe 9.1 (dunno if it's worth it for me to go purchase 9.2, seeing as I don't plan on using Novell technical support or anything). I've tried Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian, and now I'm looking for something new. I also want a machine that isn't high maintence, so that's why I'm avoiding slackwear here. I'm probably going to use the laptop mostly for:


- ***Software development***

and minorly for:

- Office suite
- Web browsing
- (maybe) Music


And not much else. Well, I at least want it to look pimp so when I bust it out on campus or at work people will ph34r and respect me

I've used FC2, FC3, Suse 9.1, Madrake 10 and all have been really good distro's. I'm currently using Simply Mepis 3.3 and really like it. Very nice and easy to configure and install. As matter of fact, this is the first time I've used Linux more than Windows.

Rushtrader im lso using inspiron 700m, did the wifi work when you installed FC3? how did u fix the resolution problem? Im thinking of using it too but im having doubts about the wifi and other stuff working properly

Hi
I have found the best laptop disro to be SimplyMepis, this is a Debian based disto similare to Knoppix, but a great deal easyer to install.
You simply boot from the live disk and if all your hardware is reconised, click on the Install Center icon and follow the simple instructions, if you have any problems there is a large and deicated community at http://www.mepis.org/ .
Regards Jim

I have a sony pcg-r505el that sits on a docking station that houses the dvd-rom. The dvd-rom is on a 1394 (firewire) bus. FC3 supports that and lets you install from a DVD or CD, but other installations I've tried don't.

My question is, does anyone know which distro(s) support 1394 during installation? Thanks.

If your like me, and want more than 1 GB free after installing linux on your laptop go for VectorLinux. I run it on my old Toshiba, and it's great. Fully installed it only uses like 500-600 mb. I ran Slackware on an even older laptop, and it only had 4GB to begin with, after installing slackware and a few other choice programs I had less than 2GB...

I have suse 9.1 pro and i wanted to install it on my laptop, but now there's 9.2. so what's the difference between 9.1 and 9.2??

I also have a IBM thinkpad 600 series...

I ran red hat on in for years... now have fedora core 3 and i couldn't be happier....

my last 2 laptops were also thinkpads.... and even back in the day of red hat 5 i was happy with the thinkpad support

my next laptop will be a thinkpad.... and it will run linux (naturally )

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in to the hat. I have a Dell 9100 and have a dual-boot with WinXP and Gentoo 2004.3. I imagine there are some mixed feeling about Gentoo here, but by far it is the fastest distro I've run on my laptop. I didn't a stage 3 install and had it running in about an hour. Gentoo for me is extremely easy to maintain and update. Yes installing software can be long and tedious, but the end result is spectacular. The only problem I had was getting the wireless network up and running. Don't get my wrong it wasn't impossible just a little tricky getting ndiswrapper to start at boot time. Yet after I got it up and running it connects faster and works better than it does in Windows. Boot times are really fast, starting Gnome or other window managers are fast. I've tried FC3 and Mandrake but didn't like them cause they were slow. Debian is too outdated (I know I could use unstable and be up todate, but why not make that the default). Haven't tried Ubuntu or Mepis. It really came down to what I was comfortable with and willing to put with.

Have fun.

I have an eMachine laptop, with an amd 3000+ dual booting debian (sid) and slackware (10.0). I had windows on it at one time (came with it) but have since taken it off, its just in the way. Anyway, both of those distros found all my hardware no problem (except I had to add one line to the alsa config file under slackware, no big deal). Also wanted to note I got both a linux wifi card (orinico) and a non-linux card working using the madwifi and ndiswrapper modules, and they both are working great (one is 802.11g, the othe is 802.11b)

Well thats my 2 cents.

I've a Dell 600m and have tested several distributions. So far, Gentoo is the fastest for daily use: it takes more work in the beginning and when I want to install something new, because it compiles anything, but I really find a big difference in boot-time and general performance.

Oops... just noticed the post of Dillweed. Well, just to make a difference: I got wireless working pretty easily in Gentoo, but I didn't succeed in Debian, for instance. The card is a IPW2100. Yours is probably IPW2200. They are very similar for configuring.

well.. i am using debian sarge and it has worked pretty well.. the only things that i had didnt work right out of the box is the touchpad(well it did work but not with synaptics driver, and i guess i didnt do something cause in my previous installation it worked out of the box) but no problem solving it... then the sound card and all it almost worked.. just had to add the modules .. no big trouble...

i also tried suse 9.0 and its pretty cool and worked well

I have suse 9.1 and works perfectly with my acer Aspire 1711, it recognised everything, graphics card,sound card, wireless internet card, touch pad...