Medion Netbook - Anyone willing to recommend a distro they have tried?
 

Hello Everyone,

I just came into possession of a second netbook because my wife was given a new one with her 3G sign-up. It is one she purchased a couple of months ago in a hurry against my better judgement, but there you go...

Anyway, it is a Medion (one of the cheaper models with a not-so-good build quality), and it has the standard netbook specs: Atom N270, 1GB mem, 80G hard drive, with XP already on it. I doubt that I will keep XP installed and will probably just wipe the drive.

What I would like, if someone who has tried them would be so kind, as to recommend a lightweight distro that I can get some real speed from this thing. I have Ubuntu on another netbook, and it is fine except pretty slow. My needs aren't much and I am willing to get under the hood if I have to do some work, but I have a couple of questions:

1. It has a Ralink wireless chipset, which uses the ra0 module and that module would not enable WPA on Puppy (or my problem would be solved, I like Puppy, but with no wireless, it is useless.) What lightweight distro has good wireless support built-in?

2. It has the typical modile Intel 945 chipset, which Puppy didn't like, either. A lightweight distro that has no trouble with this chipset?

I only need a desktop, wireless, browser and a word processor. And, as I said, I am willing to do a little work to configure everything, I just want speed and control. Right now I am leaning toward Slax, but I know nothing of its wireless capabilities. Slackware itself is also a possibility, but it would have to be a net install since there is no CD.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I know it looks like I am just being lazy by not just installing a few and trying them, but I just don't have the time right now, so I would be thankful if anyone can give me their experience with a very lightwright distro on a netbook.

Thanks

Bob

Hey, these are pretty good, depending on your knowledge of Linux-

CrunchBang-8.04/8.10 (Ubuntu based) Good and fast for low-ram too)

Slackware 12.2 the best, though if inexperienced you will have to spend time learning it, but it will play "out of the box".

TinyCore-1.4 Fast, lightweight and the next DSL.

Or try a multidistro and see what you want too.

Hi, linus72. Thanks for your post. I have followed some of your threads (particularly the one for persistent Slack on a USB). I am already a Slack user on my main laptop, and have been using it since 10.1. I know it pretty well, but it has gotten the best of me every now and then, solved everytime by the good folks on the Slack forum here. I am leaning toward 12.2, but I have never done a net install, so I would need to read up on that. But even Slack is more than I really need for this little computer. Browsing, email and the occassional document. That's it. I just don't want to have to fight with the wireless endlessly.

I will have a look at Crunchbang as well. Not familiar with that one at all.

Thanks again

Bob

If you haven't already made up your mind and have some time to spare, give Eeebuntu a spin. I am very pleased with it (and I might add I prefer it over Ubuntu Netbook Remix). It works great on my little Eee 901. And despite the name, it works with computers other than the Asus Eee series.

Yes, thank you for that. I have in fact put that one on my list. If there is a live version I will try it and see how it looks. The ralink wireless I have found requires the rt2860 module, which I know is available from Ralinks web site but isn't supported natively in Linux until 2.6.28 (I believe that is correct), though the Puppy version I tried did work just fine with this driver, but would not support WPA. So I am finding just what I was afraid I would: wireless headaches with lightweight distros.

For your information, the chip in my Eee 901 is an Ralink rt2860 and with Eeebuntu it works fine on the WPA networks I have tried it on. Here at home I have an WPA1 network, but I believe the networks I use at work all use WPA2 (I cannot really double check on this since I'm on parental leave).

I have now tried eeebuntu and it does indeed work out of the box with all components. I will run it from the USB for a couple of days and see if there are any issues. Thanks for the recommendation.

Bob