Which Linux OS

gavkearney

I have recently just purchased a laptop with a AMD Turion 64 X chip. I want to partition the drive and install a linux OS along side XP.
I have a couple of questions:

Presumably a linux OS will run fine on the above processor???

Secondly, can anyone recommend a linux OS, SUSE, uBuntu, etc. I'm a little confused by the wealth of versions available.

Also, what linux versions contain the XGL desktop? Thats fairly cool.

Your help is much appreciated.
Thanks.

Zombrex

gavkearney wrote:

Presumably a linux OS will run fine on the above processor???

It will, but getting Linux to work with your laptop might be a bit more tricky.

Most laptops have custom hardware, with specific Windows drivers produced by who ever makes the laptop. As such Linux support for this hardware can be a bit of short supply.

Put your laptop make and model into Google and see if anyone has experience getting linux to work on it.

gavkearney wrote:

Secondly, can anyone recommend a linux OS, SUSE, uBuntu, etc. I'm a little confused by the wealth of versions available.

Also, what linux versions contain the XGL desktop? Thats fairly cool.

SUSE and Ubuntu are not bad places to start. Make sure you read up on either of them before you attempt an install, particularly the installation instructions, and also relating back to the point above, see if anyone has got either (or any Linux distribution) to work on your laptop version before.

You best bet is to down load what is known as a LiveCD (these can actually be CDs or DVDs) for any of the distributions you want to look at. What this is is a version of the distribution on a bootable CD, that boots the os off the CD into memory, ignoring your harddrive.

You can then test out Linux and see if it finds your hardware and stuff, without over writing anything on your harddrive. It isn't perfect (i've had the odd case where hardware works on the LiveCD but not when I install properly) but it is by far the best place to start.

NutJob

If ur lucky soeones done all the hard work for you
[SIZE=-1]www.linux-laptop.net/

[/SIZE]

aidan_walsh

The Linux Distro Chooser.

I will second Wicknight about using a LiveCD if available (one of the questions in the chooser) to check compatability.

dubhthach

Fedora Core 6 comes with AIGLX support and Compriz built in, ye just have to enable it through a menu panel. I know on my Core2 laptop had no problems getting it working with either compiz or beryl for the 3d cube desktop effect.

Of course depending on your gfx your mileage may vary.

MarkR

Ubuntu has a nice live cd that you could test with. If you don't have dsl I'd be happy to send anyone a copy who sends me a blank cd and a self addressed envelope...

brian_rbk

Im a newbie to the linux world, but recently installed linux (fedora core 5) onto my 2 yr old acer laptop. Some small problems on the way, screen resolution and wireless networking, but nothing a quick search on google didnt sort out. if you have problems installing some hardware, do a search on ndiswrapper ... allows u to use windows drivers in linux.

also, fedora is a fairly user friendly version to install and use.

good luck

Red Alert

XGL is still pretty new, and i'm not sure how well it coexists with actual 3-D apps like games. Looks really cool, so i might give it a whirl while i'm rebuilting my Gentoo box.

Red Alert

Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) are also practically easy enough for a total computer newbie to use.

X resolution my laptop (dell d600) has always been a bit hit and miss - if i can get it right i'll post up an X config in case it's helpful

Blowfish

Red Alert wrote:

XGL is still pretty new, and i'm not sure how well it coexists with actual 3-D apps like games.

I had XGL and compiz installed on Freespire, and it handled some games pretty badly. Most of the games were ok, but when playing The Battle For Wesnoth, it would change some parts of the interface to be transparent, and it would eventually hang after a while.

In saying that though, it's only a few clicks (or one shell command) to disable it temporarily.

Beryl is supposed to be better in that regard anyway.