Thread: linux download for a laptop

Jimbo, just for kicks, if you've got an extra PC, try mint 10.4. The KDE interface is really neat. Same family GUI Fedora 5 had when I first got into linux.

I might just do that Jimmy, thanks. I've used KDE before and did quite like it as a desktop manager, although the newer Plasma ones left me a bit cold. But I cannot get my head around Gnome 3 - I like linux because I can muck around and configure and tweak. Gnome 3 seems to lock a lot of things down. Perhaps they will improve things with later versions.

James.

It really depends on each individual..

If you are new Mint is really easy to use and is very user friendly. If it didn't have the advertisement in it, it would be a great OS (it is easy enough to remove though)

Personally i like to stick with a stock os and install what i need at the time, eg. I'm running debian with the mint start menu + firefox rather then iceweasel (even though its the same)

For a laptop, if it has enough grunt try a KDE GUI. Open suse has a great KDE interface or if you hit tab during a debian install you can type

Code:

install tasks="kde-desktop, standard

And get the same interface

But like i said, it really depends on the individual, as well as hardware and knowledge..

My system (Debian Squeeze with the Mint Menu)



Standard Debian Squeeze


Mint 11


Ubuntu 10.04


Ubuntu 11.04


Suse 11.2


Kubuntu 11.04

Really it comes down to what distribution you want and then if you want an off shoot of that distribution. and you need to know what GUI you want to use.. if any..

Also, check out http://distrowatch.com
And there used to be a linux comparison site where you can put several side by side, i think its this site but its down at the moment http://polishlinux.org/

And another cool utility much the same as Universal USB Installer is U net bootin here: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

ok, i downloaded mint 11 to a disk but it wont load right, do i need to do an fdisk before trying to load the program

What do you mean wont load right? Which step is failing?

Originally Posted by wvloony

ok, i downloaded mint 11 to a disk but it wont load right, do i need to do an fdisk before trying to load the program

well i tried to load it by restarting with the disk in the drive, and that didnt work

So it would not boot of the cd at all? Just skipped it and went into windows? Or did it throw an error about the media type or something?

Originally Posted by wvloony

well i tried to load it by restarting with the disk in the drive, and that didnt work

my son is one of the instant gratification kids, i dont want to mess it up, and he keeps pushing and pushing, so i have walked away for now, any help with this will be greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by wvloony

well i tried to load it by restarting with the disk in the drive, and that didnt work

In your bios are you set up to boot off of a disk ? Sometimes they are set up to boot from the drive. In that case you have to go into bios and change the boot order. I had to do that once.

Sometimes you have to hold down F12 to get to a boot device menu. I've had that a number of times.