Linux Decisions + Linux Operating System on Laptop

[dougeeebear]

Since I purchased my SL-5500 a few months ago, I have become more and more interested in Linux.
I have a Gateway laptop computer 2.2ghz intel celeron processor with Windows XP Home Edition installed on one partition, and MS-DOS installed on another partition.
I have a boot manager that allows me to have multiple operating systems on my laptop, and switch between them.
I would like to install Linux in another partition, but I don't have a clue of what I should get, or where is the best place to look for it.
I will need the complete operating system, and some programs that will get me started.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks, Doug

[vputz]

I'll add what others will probably second--if you want to just check it out first, a great try-before-you-buy option is Knoppix (www.knoppix.net is one good place, or head direct to the source at knopper.net.

You'll get a bootable Linux CD image which will go all the way to a graphical desktop.  It'll run slowly because everything has to be streamed from a compressed CD image, but it'll at least get you an idea of what you're jumping into.

You CAN install knoppix direct from the CD, but you may want to go for a prepackaged distribution that's designed a bit more for that sort of thing.  And there are far too many to choose from.  Higher learning curve but more educational and really good: Debian; more corporate: Redhat; a bit more hobbyist but from what I've heard a very good distribution: Gentoo; new on the block but garnering a lot of interest: Ubuntu.  I could go on for a while.

I'd say, start by booting Knoppix from CD.  If you're still interested, be prepared to do a lot of research... but it's great; I only boot Windows for games, and even some of those I can run under Linux.

-->VPutz

[Pyrates]

Just let me add: I've read that aurox linux is well-suited for laptops. Can't comment on that, but thought I'd share... (My personal preference for the desktop is Gentoo, if you need more choices; it's still more hassle then Debian, but the software is much more up-do-date).

Cheers
Philipp

[sonicbuddha]

Both Fedora and Suse offer good releases for laptops; I use both.  Fedora can be a bit too cutting edge for server use, in my opinion, but should be fine for your laptop.  The advantage of Fedora is the very pervasive apt support from FreshRPMS, DAG, Newrpms, Dries and ATrpms, which makes updating and installing new packages as easy as ipkg and a good feed.  Suse, which can be a bit more stable, also has a half decent apt support in http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/, but I find their abiltity to produce working, up to date rpms spotty at best.  
There are tons of Linux distros out there.   Experiment.  And then there is BSD....  

[clivel]

I'll add a vote for Suse, I have 8.2 on one laptop, and 9.1 on another. Both installations went absolutely smoothly, with all my hardware identified and the networking setup automatically. Perhaps the biggest installation hassle was trying to decide what to install. Suse like most distributions comes with thousands of packages. I particularly like the automatic package upgrade, whereby Suse calls home when you tell it, grabs a list of updated packages, and offers to install them for you.
You can download a Live CD version of Suse 9.2 at http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/ this will allow you try it out, and see if your hardware is compatible. Unfortunately if you like it you will have to purchase Suse. This is not as bad as it sounds, as the manuals that come with it are more than worth the price.
You mention that you have a partition manager, you may want to resize the Windows and DOS partitions before installing whatever Linux distribution that you choose.
Regards,
Clive

[eks]

Linux From Scratch
Gentoo Linux
DistroWatch.org

[revdjenk]

Hey doug...

I agree with vputz and others about trying a CD based or lived CD version first.
I have looked at Knoppix, Kanotix (get these at knoppix.com and kanotix.com) and Yoper (Yoper is NOT live CD however.)
all are pleasing distros in many ways. They all recognize my hardware and have all the software that I would need. However, my trouble is with my Canon printer. I have not been able to find a suitalbe driver for it (an i850.) So while my 333 mHz celeron ran very happily with all these distros, my home setup is not ready for it yet!

God Bless
Doug

[BarryW]

Slackware of course!  I got it to run on a cyrix 166 Itronix.  Just look up Itronix on ebay and you'll see one.

[bluedevils]

Another vote for gentoo.  I use it on a 700mhz ibm a20 as well as my main desktop.  gentoo is a little more work to get it going (no gui installer), but portage I find is a great way to add, remove and maintain software versions.  I like slackware and freebsd on desktop, but I have not tried them on a laptop.

Linux WMs have come a long way since when I first started.  I love FVWM's thumbnails and enlightenment's pager, but I mainly love fluxbox.

[gentoosiastix]

Best solution = Gentoo of course  

Easy way = MDK 10.1

[ostense]

Hi !

It all depends... The easy way to use Linux is MEPIS . Look at :

http://www.mepis.org/

Live CD (boot from CD) or install to the harddisk. Finds almost all HW . Java, Flash, realplayer, mplayer .... (you name it!) all configured to work right away. And apt-get works right out of the box if you still miss anything.

Simply the best !!

[dougeeebear]

Thank you for all your input.
You have given me a lot to check out.
Looks like I'm going to be busy.
I'm gonna try to see what's *free* first (if any are).

Thanks again,

Doug

[vputz]

> I'm gonna try to see what's *free* first (if any are).

Heh... if you thought that was going to reduce your options, you were way wrong.  I'm pretty sure all the options mentioned are free.  Welcome to the world of high-quality low-cost open-source software!

-->VPutz

[TimW]

If you have any problem downloading the images or can't burn your own CDs BudgetLinuxCDs are worth a look.

I'd recommend Mandrake, myself, but don't get 10.0 which has a bug in the partitioning code in at least some of the publicly available versions. Get 9.2 (if its still available) or 10.1. If you do get it from BudgetLinux (or even if you don't 8^) ), you can also get all the contributed packages and updates on CD from them, too.

Most of the other mentioned distributions can be got from them ahnd probably most of them have an equivalent of the contributions disks - I just know Mandrake a little better.

[doc]

You should look at:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Look for examples by folks that have written how-tos for your specific hardware.  There might be some points there to direct you which distro would be a good match.  I use Fedora Core on all my equipment and have had absolutely no hardware issues since Core 2.  Just downloaded Core 3 DVD via the bittorrent and will be trying that soon.