I have a Dell Latitude c640 and I have been on an endless quest to find an OS that does everything I need to do without deteriorating after a few weeks. Windows XP does almost everything I want it to do except for suspend support, (it's supposed to work but it doesn't). Also, it tends to stop working after I've had it installed for a while. I've been a big Ubuntu fan but there are a couple of sticking points there too.

So, here's what I need to be able to do with my computer, with minimal amounts of black magic and alchemy.

* Good multimedia support.

I have a bunch of Anime and other random media that I want to be able to watch. It's mostly either divx or Matroska. I also need to be able to play MP3s.

* DVD burning.

I have a DVD burner and I'd like to use it. I at least need K3B, and mabe also K9Copy and something to make my own DVDs.

* TV-Out!!!

This is the main sticking point for me and if I can't get it to work it ruins everything else I might be able to do. I live in a dorm and my laptop is the only functioning DVD player in my room, so my room mates depend on me to have it working well. I'm getting so tired of hearing how much my "computer sucks" from them. A pentium 4 with 1 gig of ram does not "suck". Please help me prove them wrong!

* PSP homebrew

I need to be able to install a popstation gui so that I can convert PSX isos to play on my Playstation Portable. There is one for KDE that I'd like to use but I never could get it to compile right on Kubuntu.


That's pretty much all the specialized stuff I need. So, what disto should I try?

Try Linux Mint. And also see www.linux-laptop.net as I believe there are a number of Dell entries there - esp. your model.

I actually did use Linux Mint for several months, and was quite happy with it. The only thing I had trouble with was the TV-out. I'll have a look at that site you linked to though, thanks!

Well, I looked at that site. All the howtos are way outdated for my model. This doesn't help me much.