Best Linux Distro for a Laptop

[Asher]

I'm concerned about hardware support...Linux was not working last time I tried, I doubt BSDs would be any better with driver support.

[aneeshm]

The BSDs are known to have better support for some drivers , but I wouldn't know , I haven't really used them . Try Linux From Scratch if you're really wanting to customise your distro ( and have some time to invest ) . LFS handmade distros tend to be great for people who know what they're doing .

[Asher]

Gentoo status: bust.

Can't get the damn wireless to work. The airo driver supposedly comes with 2005.0, and it's loaded, and it's detected (iwconfig lists it).

However, I can't do anything with it. "iwconfig eth0 essid Wireless" (which should said the SSID to "Wireless") doesn't do anything at all. Typing "iwconfig eth0" shows the SSID set to "" still.

Worthless.

Hopefully Debian/Ubuntu fair better, but they're still downloading.

[Atahualpa]

Some of laurentius sources say the driver needed comes from the madwifi project: http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/
T40 Atheros is listed under compatibility there.

[aneeshm]

@ Asher

Tried hacking the config file ( if there is one ) manually ?

[Asher]

Didn't know which one to hack, and from what I had read if the device shows up in "iwconfig" the driver installed correctly.

[aneeshm]

Hmm . . . . .

After reading the man page for iwconfig , I'd say you try this :

iwconfig eth0 essid "Wireless"

with the quotes , followed by

iwconfig eth0 commit

which should fix it . If it doesn't , then try Ubuntu/Debian .

[Asher]

The Ubuntu/Debian DVDs should be done by the time I get home.

What is the advantage of Ubuntu?

[Verto]

[Impaler[WrG]]

I wish you luck in your Quest Asher.

Now who has some ideas for what kind of LinuxI should put on my Anchient....

Dell Latitude, Pentium 2 , 64MB (yes MEGA BYTE) Ram, 20 GB hard drive. (someone gave it away and I was like "well if its free I guess so").

[aneeshm]

Ubuntu - simple and small , supposedly with good hardware support ( at least , everything I have works flawlessly , but then I have no wireless equipment ) . Debian - has everything , so has the best hardware support , but is a bit more difficult to set up than the other , more user-friendly distros ( and I'm not including Gentoo is the user-friendly category - it is a source distro , after all ) .

[aneeshm]

Laurentius has hit gold in this link .

[Asher]

I don't have the same wireless card as that guy does, I have the Cisco Aironet wireless.

[Q Classic]

BTW. the reason why the wireless doesn't work in Gentoo is because you've got to pull out some triksy ****. Apparently, the card doesn't quite have an OSS driver yet.

I've tried installing it on a T40 before--I dunno how Debian will do, but somehow, I doubt it'll be able to work.

Honestly? I'd suggest using VirtualPC. That way, you can have linux on top of hardware which it will support, seeing as it's a vague baseline.

[Asher]

Cisco has had one on their website for over a year: http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/tableb...et-utils-linux

The "airo" driver included with the new linux kernels is supposed to work with it.