New distro time...

Fenster

Anyone have suggestions?

Its for a laptop.

oscarBravo

I'm eyeing up Ubuntu. Looks kinda sweet.

Fenster

I'm thinking about something obscure this time. Gentoo still defeats me but I'm up to try anything short of it.

oscarBravo

Fenster wrote:

Gentoo still defeats me

Why?

aidan_walsh

Obscure migth not necessarily be the way to go with a laptop though... I have heard reports of Linux not liking the portables much... Perhaps you should compare your model against these guys, and take it from there.

But of course if you feel like the adventure, be sure to open a blogger account before you go Capture the horror, I mean, the fun for us all to see...

Fenster

lol

I inevitably do something wrong with Gentoo and it won't boot up.

I might just give it another try as I have the laptop running while I play WoW, so I can keep an eye on things.

logistic

oscarBravo wrote:

I'm eyeing up Ubuntu. Looks kinda sweet.

I second ubuntu, try it out before Gentoo, sure its only one cd.

fenris

I have found Suse to be very good for laptops (mostly Dells), seems to have better power mgt and actual hardware recognition than redhat based distros (seems to think that they know what is there but can't be bothered to allow it to work). Another plus point of suse is that you can now use apt-get with it!

A good approach is to fire up something like knoppix and note what hardware is recognised and works properly, then use that info with whatever distro you finally use.

Enygma

A third for Ubuntu, it's a joy to use.

tck

I too recommend ubuntu, converted and trying to convert others :P

lets scream it from the hilltops

scojones

Fenster wrote:

lol

I inevitably do something wrong with Gentoo and it won't boot up.

I might just give it another try as I have the laptop running while I play WoW, so I can keep an eye on things.

I've installed gentoo stage1 successfully on my laptop. It didn't boot right the first time cause i was lazy and went ahead with the genkernel, it stalled when checking for raid devices :eek: so I used the boot cd and just recompiled the kernel - which i should have done at the start but i wanted to see it quickly (it was 5am and i had college at 9am).

What happens when you try to boot yours? Did you do a stage1/2/3 install?

pickarooney

tck wrote:

I too recommend ubuntu, converted and trying to convert others :P

lets scream it from the hilltops

Convert me. Tell me in 100 words or less why I should switch from Mandrake. I am actually thinking of switching, though purely out of curiosity.

Is gentoo just for people who are fed-up with n00bs being able to install linux in half an hour all of a sudden? I'm also thinking of switching to it (out of curiosity and masochism, and to check out all ends of the spectrum). Sell it to me in 150 words (extra allowance for l33tn355 )

maxheadroom

pickarooney wrote:

Is gentoo just for people who are fed-up with n00bs being able to install linux in half an hour all of a sudden? I'm also thinking of switching to it (out of curiosity and masochism, and to check out all ends of the spectrum). Sell it to me in 150 words (extra allowance for l33tn355 )

Gentoo might take a while to install, but once it's installed it's ludicrously easy to maintain. It has the best documentation I've seen, so even though you have to configure things by hand you'll actually understand why you're doing what you're doing. Despite appearances, it is very n00b friendly, once you're prepared to RTFM.

(54 words :P)

pickarooney

I presume you mean dependency-hell is a thing of the past on a fully installed system?
That in itself is nearly reason enough to switch I suppose

maxheadroom

pickarooney wrote:

I presume you mean dependency-hell is a thing of the past on a fully installed system?
That in itself is nearly reason enough to switch I suppose

Hmmm.. I vaguely remember having to deal with dependencies on mandrake a while ago...

Seriously though, once you use the stable packages, you'll never have a problem. If you read the instructions and follow them, you'll rarely have a problem with the unstable ones either.

One thing I will say is that it's quite internet dependent, and source traballs tend to be big. So, I'd imagine that using gentoo on dialup is a frustrating experience.

MrVestek

Wait i dont get it, after looking at screenshots what the hell is ubuntu... linux for naked people?!

Fenster

sjones wrote:

I've installed gentoo stage1 successfully on my laptop. It didn't boot right the first time cause i was lazy and went ahead with the genkernel, it stalled when checking for raid devices :eek: so I used the boot cd and just recompiled the kernel - which i should have done at the start but i wanted to see it quickly (it was 5am and i had college at 9am).

What happens when you try to boot yours? Did you do a stage1/2/3 install?

Stage 1, I think, as I had time to spare.

pickarooney

at the risk of being sent here, what are the advantages of a 1st level install (assuming this is the type that causes most problems) over a 2nd/3rd level?

I must find a crap PC to try out a few installs on.

oscarBravo

In a stage 1 install, you compile the compiler and the standard libraries with optimised settings for your particular machine. If, like me, you've a funny machine (Epia in my case) it can make a huge difference in performance.

Of course, you can always recompile everything at your leisure once the install is finished, so in some respects there's not that much to be gained from a stage 1.

maxheadroom

pickarooney wrote:

at the risk of being sent here, what are the advantages of a 1st level install (assuming this is the type that causes most problems) over a 2nd/3rd level

I'll be nice and point you at the page in the docs that explains it. Like I said, the docs are great, but you really have to be prepared to read them.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=2#doc_chap2

If you're installing gentoo, you're probably going to be compiling everything from scratch, so an old crap PC will take a long time to be useable.

dawballz

whats wrong with "n00bs" being able to install in half an hour. more user friendly == more people(potentially) that will switch from windows to linux.

Ste-

Tempted to try Ubuntu but I find having an Ati card a bit tricky to get 3d accleration going.
Most of the times the Ati driver would never install and the standard driver was ok but on a 2.6 kernel (Mandrake) there were problems with my monitor going into power save and not coming back out of untill I cold reset.

I've read up a bit about it and all seems well using apt-get and the ati.2 driver.
Just wondering if anyone has done it and what kernel they used.

Tried Gentoo a while back using genkernel and it wouldn't boot. Would try again but lack of time is an issue.

pickarooney

maxheadroom wrote:

I'll be nice and point you at the page in the docs that explains it. Like I said, the docs are great, but you really have to be prepared to read them.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=2#doc_chap2

If you're installing gentoo, you're probably going to be compiling everything from scratch, so an old crap PC will take a long time to be useable.

This is the swings and roundabouts bit that I get stuck on. If I have an old crappy PC, I want to compile everything (possibly some mad hardware in there) and optimise it so it will run at a noticeably faster speed than an RPM-based distro. But the machine is too slow to compile and install the distro in a sane amount of time. With a faster PC, this time is reduced, but so is the necessity to optimise the kernel etc. for the hardware.

dawballz wrote:

whats wrong with "n00bs" being able to install in half an hour. more user friendly == more people(potentially) that will switch from windows to linux.

This is another Catch-22 type scenario. There's a certain, (thankfully smallish) smug element amongst linux users that will at once mock Windows users and deride Microsoft, yet hate the thought of these same users switching to linux, and having a piece of their perceived elite cake. They probably hate Ubuntu and Knoppix. And Linspire, but then everybody hates that.

maxheadroom

pickarooney wrote:

This is the swings and roundabouts bit that I get stuck on. If I have an old crappy PC, I want to compile everything (possibly some mad hardware in there) and optimise it so it will run at a noticeably faster speed than an RPM-based distro. But the machine is too slow to compile and install the distro in a sane amount of time. With a faster PC, this time is reduced, but so is the necessity to optimise the kernel etc. for the hardware.

What you can do is use distcc to distribute the compilation around several computers. I've never done this myself, but it should help you out on an older computer. The other alternative is to do a stage 3 install and then gradually rebuild the system as its being used. You'll need to compile the kernel anyway, but that shouldn't be too arduous.

pickarooney

maxheadroom wrote:

What you can do is use distcc to distribute the compilation around several computers. I've never done this myself, but it should help you out on an older computer. The other alternative is to do a stage 3 install and then gradually rebuild the system as its being used. You'll need to compile the kernel anyway, but that shouldn't be too arduous.

I was wondering if there was a way to calculate the necessary to-do list on the target PC and then compile it on a fast helper machine. The alternative sounds a bit saner

Enygma

Ubuntu in 10 words or so
===================
For the most part it "just works". There are still a few wrinkles but in general it's a very solid system. It's a single CD distro so you don't get 10 of everything, the developers have chosen their favourites of each of the essential apps that make up the system. i.e. Firefox is the only browser installed by default, Gnome 2.8 is the desktop manager, evolution for email etc. Of course you can just apt-get any other packages you want afterwards.



I did give Gentoo a go while I was waiting for a new hard disk, it was ok I guess, I learnt a good deal about linux in the short time I used it that I didn't know before. The main reason I wanted it was because I really wanted to be able to 'emerge' new packages. apt-get works just fine and I don't have to compile everything from source.

I guess its really down to what you want to do with the system. If you want to learn more about Linux and spend most of your time messing about with it then choose Gentoo.
If you want to just "get things done" without wanting to optimize every little detail of your system then choose ubuntu.

[edit]
BTW, I also installed ubuntu just to check it out cause I thought it looked interesting. I was planning on going with FC3. I was so impressed with ubuntu that it's staying on my system for good now.
[/edit]

nadir

yea, Gentoo suits me for a home pc, can customize it very easily. nice and simple to maintain, excellent docs and a great community.
Id basically use it for any 'custom' type machine, for example if I wanted a machine for playing movies or for some type of dedicated use, or a home pc.
If i wanted something quick to set up I guess id go for something like ubuntu.
been using gentoo for nearly 2 years now, still by far the best os imo.

OfflerCrocGod

maxheadroom wrote:

What you can do is use distcc to distribute the compilation around several computers. I've never done this myself, but it should help you out on an older computer. The other alternative is to do a stage 3 install and then gradually rebuild the system as its being used. You'll need to compile the kernel anyway, but that shouldn't be too arduous.

I've not noticed distcc speeding up my compiles that much to be brutally honest Pity, 24 hours for KDE is a pain in the ass, I still love Gentoo though

Fenster

Well I tried Suse, just didn't like it and it didn't detect my soundcard, FC3 runs slow and didn't detect my soundcard. Gentoo didn't detect my soundcard, Unbuntu didn't detect my sound card and it enables DHCP everytime I boot up and gives my laptop my desktop's IP.

At the end of it all, I'm no closer to something I'd use.

maxheadroom

Fenster wrote:

Gentoo didn't detect my soundcard

What soundcard is it? Did you enable support for it when you built your kernel. Did you edit the alsa config file to load the correct modules? did you add the alsa script to your default runlevel?

Fenster

Of course. Its a bog-standard AC97 card, but whatever designation Toshiba gave the card wasn't normal, so every OS has a problem detecting it. Its been a big complaint about these laptops that I've seen. Only FC2 so far out of every OS I've tried has detected it.

maxheadroom

Fenster wrote:

Of course. Its a bog-standard AC97 card, but whatever designation Toshiba gave the card wasn't normal, so every OS has a problem detecting it. Its been a big complaint about these laptops that I've seen. Only FC2 so far out of every OS I've tried has detected it.

Do you remember what module FC2 loaded? And what kernel version? If you still have it installed, do an lsmod to find the module.

Maybe try posting on the gentoo forum? They're really helpful when it comes to problems like this

tomk

Fenster wrote:

I'm thinking about something obscure this time.

Check out Arch Linux - still fairly obscure, but growing in popularity. I have it on a spare partition on my laptop at the moment.

Arch is still pretty young - the current stable release is 0.6, and 0.7 is in beta. There's a good user forum and the wiki has some good stuff too.

nadir

Fenster wrote:

Of course. Its a bog-standard AC97 card, but whatever designation Toshiba gave the card wasn't normal, so every OS has a problem detecting it. Its been a big complaint about these laptops that I've seen. Only FC2 so far out of every OS I've tried has detected it.

those cards work fine afaik, I have an ac97 too, and I know people with those toshiba laptops that have it working, you must have made a mistake, O_o
Also you can get pretty decent sound mixing with dmix, works fine, although some things still whore it, like quake3

Fenster

I installed Arch-it certainly was less hassle than Gentoo, but the whole thing seems a bit barebones, not even X comes with it that I saw. Currently having a whale of a time trying to get X to install.

tomk

Yeah, the Arch approach is basically to keep it simple - the base install is text only. After that, you update pacman, and then select the packages you want to install.

The default X package is xorg - I'm posting from it right now - but XFree86 is still available if you prefer. Make sure you get the hwd package for hardware detection - it's very effective.