I am trying to work out which distro I want to try and use for my computer. I really want to make the move to linux ( mostly becuase of vista) but there are a few things holding me back.

I run an inspiron 2600 laptop. it has a cd read drive. and a floppy.
hard drive 20G which I have basicalley filled. ( I can empty the files but resize of the partition is not possible so if I move over there is no going back).

of that about 6 is data and my apps, but the rest I cannot work out. I do not have windows cd to repair this as my friend gave me the comp for free, which means, if anything goes wrong I have no windows.

I have tried a number of distros but they all have something holding me back.

puppy linux boots great and has many pros, but I have a webcam that is too new, and so cannot use it in puppy yet, the drivers have been written, and are in gspca's most recent update, but I cannot get this to compile for puppy 4.2, I was reccomended to move to Jaunty puppy, becuase this has the drivers on it.

Jaunty puppy. There are 3 main versions of jaunty puppy, available, all of which show the boot screen, start booting the two main files, but then the cd stops running, and the boot fails with a flashing underscore in the top corner. ( xubunto also does this), someone told me juanty has boot issues. so I thought I would see about other distros.

pclinuxos, gets further, but then after a message saying it cannot find the screen settings ( paraphrase, sorry I have forgotten the exact message) it gives me the option to choose screen settings, from a list of about 10, I have tried many of these but to no avail. each time the screen goes black, ( backlit), and the cd stops.
I also tried to safeboot which got further but did not make it to the main screen.

knoppix basically does the same except I havent found safe boot yet.

tinyme 8.1 droplet boots up, runs nice, but does not seem to have a browser, ( I looked in the add aplications and searched for opera and firefox and seamonkey, I was told it came with opera). could not find a browser anywhere, so did not know how to get other software I needed to try. seems to need to be installed properly to save anything.

Dsl-N also boots up, but I think it has some graphical issues. I wont go into them here.


What does anyone reccomend trying. is there a way to fix the boot of the main three distros.

can anyone help me compile drivers for up to date webcameras in puppy?

should I have asked explained so much, or kept it shorter.

many thanks.

thebeaky

There are a few linux live systems that you might want to check out.
All these below can be run either from a cd or a usb stick (if you
can boot from usb). Of all these slax is the easiest to configure
(you can add software later on, it's just a matter of placing
a file called a module in a certain directory)

http://www.slax.org/

http://grml.org/

http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-r...looplinux/rip/

slax and RIP are about 200MB, grml has several versions

slax and RIP (I think) are based on slackware
grml is based on debian

slax has kde
RIP flux
grml is meant as mainly for console, but you can use
a light graphical environment (not kde or gnome)

I heard that even if your bios doesn't allow you to boot from
usb, there's a bootloader called plop that you can install on
a floppy, boot from the floppy and select booting from usb

usb stick is more flexible as you can add/update, save your
changes
it's even possible to have several systems on the same key
(that's what I have on a 4GB usb stick)

Thanks, I will check them out, I think slax looks most like what I am looking for.

I'll have to take my time, as I am going away for a fortnihgt, but I will get back with success or falure after then.

cheers