Hey
Getting frustrated with our laptop and WinXP and long loading-times...would need to re-install everything....but I thought I'd try it first with some linux-distros....
If I remember right it has AMD 2400+ proc with some 80GB harddrive, integrated LAN but usually I use SMC WLAN-card in the PCMCIA-slot...
Now I've downloaded some LiveCDs of distros (Knoppix, Kubuntu, Mandriva) but I was curious of other people's opinions here...is there any distro that you know would be most likely to work out-of-the-box. I am especially thinking the WLAN here....
cheers,
Kimmo
Ubuntu is meant to be the most user friendly distribution, but Fedora is a complete "general purpose" one that comes pre-installed with all your basic applications (Abiword, Open Office, GIMP etc).
http://linuxmint.com/
^ based off of ubuntu, excellent hardware support, comes with proprietary drivers and codecs.
now to straight the record...
http://www.ubuntu.com/
^ based of debian, easy to use, pretty much the same as the above but without the proprietary stuff so probably wont work with as much out of the box.
http://fedoraproject.org/
^ based off redhat, cutting edge software, no guarantee it will work with your system or that it will be stable. Stupid download size. No proprietary software at all, so wireless could be an issue. I don't recommend this distro, when they were designing it user friendliness wasn't high on the agenda.
All the above come with everything you'd expect from a desktop operating system (not just fedora). So im recommending Linux Mint to you. Also take into account that all the above operating systems are going to be updated to the latest major release in October, so if you wait a while you will probably end up having a better user experience.
EDIT: Just noticed oodles' user title.
Quote: Just call me Oodles...
YAY, the name stuck! =D
My favorite would have to be Kubuntu... It's exactly the same as Ubuntu but with a better GUI. The thing I like the most about it is almost all the apps for it blend right into the operating system.
Kubuntu uses KDE GUI, whilst Ubuntu uses Gnome. I would rather use Gnome then KDE. I don't see KDE as better in any way.
If your laptop is still slow on Kubuntu/Ubuntu then try xubuntu - it's basically a slim version of Ubuntu built for very low-level laptops
I hate that distro so much >.>
I can't really have much of an opinion but I have used Ubuntu and found it very easy to use, although I did notice a little lacking in drivers and codecs, but that's nothing a flash drive and another computer with internet can't fix.
And do not discount FreeBSD. The forks of Linux imho create more confusion than needed.
The only one I've used is Ubuntu. It's not something I'd use as my main OS (I think I'm waaaay too used to Windows to be able to get used to anything different), but I found it surprisingly easy to use. Of course, GAIM sucks for instant messaging, and it doesn't really do too well with Windows media files (.avi and so forth), but it surprisingly recognized a lot of my drivers and was really easy to pick up and use. I just wish that I'd been able to get my video drivers to work - browsing in 1024x768 or some low resolution looks like crap on a 1440x900 screen.