Speciality distro for laptops?

dr_zayus69 · 11-26-2005, 04:54 AM

Hi. I may be buying my friend's laptop off him at some point and i'll be putting linux on it. Im curious if there is any distros that are known for working really well on laptops or is there is any ones that suck out that i should stay away from. Is they any live distro aimed at laptops? I plan on running knoppix on it before buying to see how it handles. Is there anything special i should check while im using knoppix on it that maybe i wouldn't have thought of myself? thanks for any replies in advance.

Thoreau · 11-26-2005, 05:09 AM

Just get the distro with the latest 2.6 kernel. The question isn't which distro will detect your hardware, it's which laptop has GPL'd drivers. Linux is linux all across. Since you aren't picking your laptop, then you are doing the right thing by testing live versions- which most distro's have. It will give you and idea if it will work or not.

dr_zayus69 · 11-26-2005, 05:21 AM

yeah i had did some poking around in the kernel when i was compiling one and noticed some modules for laptops - toshiba to be precise. Which is good because it is a toshiba laptop. I forgot to mention that i typically run the core series so i'll have to see if they have a live version of that.

vectordrake · 11-26-2005, 08:27 PM

Dont' worry too much about the Toshiba. Most are mostly supported. You'll be fine.

jacook · 11-27-2005, 03:26 AM

dr_zayus69,

I don't think Fedora core have Live Cds per say, however they do have Live CDs Based on FC the Blag Live CD comes to mind. Based on FC2

ftp://ftp.blagblagblag.org/pub/BLAG/...9999.20002.iso

Jake

comptiger5000 · 11-27-2005, 04:44 PM

true, FC does not have a live cd, but its so compatible, minimal testing/tweaking is needed

cafeina · 12-10-2005, 07:07 AM

Linux distros work all good on laptops if they're properly configured and the hardware has linux drivers (gpl'd or not - doesn't really matter).

I would just advise to stay away from the centrino notebooks, because centrino is not very well supported under linux. Also, there are few wireless chipsets that don't have linux drivers (most problem-prone are Broadcom and TI). The best supported wireless chipsets are Atheros and Prism.

Fireball7 · 12-10-2005, 10:05 PM

Quote:

stay away from the centrino notebooks

actually, my centrino works fine w/ FC4 right out of the box. Had to do some tweaking to get my ipw2200 to work, but everything works smoothly now. note that the only problem is that i cannot find drivers for my lan card (haven't really looked though, i always use wireless). Atheros and prism, however, do have the best support, and should (mostly) work right out of the box.

reddazz · 12-11-2005, 03:35 AM

Mandriva supports Centrino quite well. I think it uses the drivers from Intel (correct me if I am wrong). Suse seems to play along nicely with laptops as well.

cafeina · 12-11-2005, 06:23 AM

Actually it depends on which version of cenrino, because the newer centrino system, the greater possibility it'll have problems.

>> Had to do some tweaking to get my ipw2200 to work,

Yes,that's what I was talking about...tweaking,tweaking...You have almost always to do some tweaking with Centrino...

Suse is great on laptops, I agree. but it's a hell to configure by hand (i.e. without Yast)..

comptiger5000 · 12-11-2005, 01:31 PM

FC is great for compatibility and ease of use

gruven · 12-11-2005, 05:30 PM

I have gentoo on my Inspiron 8200, and even acpi works. When I close the lid, it goes into standby.

I don't think there is really any one distro that works better than the others, just use what you are comfortable with, and if need be, recompile the kernel to suite your hardware.

Just make sure any cards you buy for it will be supported, such as a wireless card, or maybe a usb sound card.

fair_is_fair · 12-11-2005, 06:43 PM

PCLOS was the first distro I was able to get installed without jumping through hoops on a fairly new Averatec notebook. Everything works well including wireless.

upchucky · 12-12-2005, 05:47 PM

I have three toshiba laptops, all run linux, but one the 2410, had a videio problem, i did get it to work but there are special configurations for it, a google search found a helpful file, and instructions. alas, none have been able to use the internal modems, i had to get a pcmcia modem.

Damn lucent win modems toshiba refused to help me, i am now using a dell