Laptop and Distro Recommendations/Suggestions

statguy · 01-14-2005, 09:42 AM

Hi. I want to shop for a laptop to run linux on. Naturally, I want something with a minimum of compatibility issues. As far as the distro goes, I have been playing with slackware at home and like it, but if there is a distro with "better" laptop support I would like to know that as well. I will need to have a dual boot system since I may need, on occasion, to run software only available for windows.

So, I am interested in your suggestions or recommendations for stable laptop/distro combinations.

Many Thanks.

jerm1701 · 01-14-2005, 09:48 AM

I've tried Mandrake 10.1o, Fedora 2, Ubunut 4.1 and Knoppix and three different laptops and I'd have to say that Mandrake 10.1 Official by far offers the best support out of the box. Out of the four, it was the only one to automatically detect and configure my wifi card and it was also the only one I was able to get any power management working. I could even hibernate and resume! It may be a bit bloated, but it works with little to no configuration.

Hope that helps,
Jeremy

reddazz · 01-14-2005, 11:36 AM

Suse is another good distro for laptops.

statguy · 01-16-2005, 02:11 PM

Thanks for the two of your comments on distros. On the hardware side, any thing I should look out for? My recent reading suggests that I should go with nvidia as opposed to ATI for the graphics chipset. What other things can be expecially problematic?

habala · 01-16-2005, 03:43 PM

I have been running slackware and have not problems except for microphone not recording, but that should be easily solved soon. I got ASUS.

sphynx · 01-16-2005, 04:09 PM

your best bet:

find a few laptops that you really like. Then check the Linux HCL here, or linux-laptop. See how compatible they are, what it takes to get it running. Different distro's work differently on different systems. Linux-laptop has laptop models and different distro's running on it. Be sure that the models and hardware are the same. Linux HCL can help with hardware questions.

lp449 · 01-16-2005, 04:41 PM

I've been using Slackware on two laptops. All the information you may need about configuring laptop's hardware can be found here: http://www.linux-laptop.net/

statguy · 01-16-2005, 09:13 PM

My, there certainly are a lot of laptops to choose from. Where to start...

lp449 · 01-17-2005, 04:20 AM

You just click on manufacturer's name and scrol down to your laptop's model