New to Linux.. Which distro would be best on my laptop?

I'm so sick of Windows..
I want to try something different, and from the sounds of things Linux is the way to go.
I'm not fussed about ease of use or pretty backgrounds and things like that, I just want something functional so I can surf the net, download anything, and play with word documents. Maybe a couple of games to keep me occupied. Also copy DVDs and CDs when I need to (no piracy, promise).

I have a Toshiba laptop:
Intel Celeron M 1.40GHz
240MB of RAM
37.2GB hard drive?
The motherboard and inbuilt graphics are from Intel, I think..nothing special, but if they're needed, I'll find out what they are.

Windows and all it's programs just seem to run so slow on this. I don't plan on dual booting.
I've read about a few of the different Linux distros, but I still have no idea which would be better. Any input is appreciated =]

 

Looks pretty standard... while windows is working get in hardware manager and make a list of ALL the hardware devices..

Debian or Fedora will work nicely, or if you fancy a change I like mint on laptops.

 

What about something lighter - your RAM is limited. That Celeron M will be taxed, as well. How about Puppy? I'm a Debian man, and as previously stated, it will run fine for you, unless you go for Gnome or KDE. LXDE and Xfce4 are fine lightweight DE's.

I'd still go with Puppy or DSL, neither lacks. Toshiba has a few issues, I never dealth with them personally, but ACPI and other issues seem to abound on Toshiba laptops. Poke around - get a sense.

 

Not sure if this is what you mean by a list of hardware devices, I'm a bit uneducated with hardware talk:

-ACPI PC
-IDE/Toshiba MK4025GAS
-Intel 82852/92955 GM/GME graphics controller
-Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-830S
-SCSIVAX DVD/CD-ROM SCSI CdRom device
-Intel 82801DBM Ultra ATA Storage controller - 24CA
-Primary & Secondary IDE Channel
-Standard keyboard, touchpad and usb mouse
-AC97 SoftV92 data fax modem with SmartCP
-Realtek RTL8139/810x family fast ethernet NIC
-Texas Instruments PCI-1410 cardbus controller
-Intel Celeron M processor 1.40GHz
-VAX347S SCSI controller
-Audio codecs, Conexant AC-Link Audio, Legacy Audio Drivers, Legacy Video Capture Devices, Media control devices, video codecs
-System Devices: ACPI fan, Intel 82801DB/DBM SMBus controller - 24C3, 82801DBM LPC interface controller 24CC, 82801DBM bridge - 2488, 82802 firmware hub device, 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV to processor I/O controller - 3580/3584/3585, ISAPNP read data port, microsoft ACPI-compliant embedded controller/system.
-Intel 82801DB/DBM USB universal host controller - 24C2/24C4, USB2 enhanced host controller - 24CD

I did have a read about Tiny-Me and PClinuxOS, would they not be good? And is Debian a big OS?
What's the main differences between the distros you guys mentioned?

I can't find much about my Toshiba L10 and linux, besides a couple of people having problems with their battery status not showing up.

 

Thanks for the info creaky.

So I'm looking at TinyMe, PClinuxOS, Puppy or Debian?
I've already asked this, but what are the biggest differences in these, or which do you personally think would be best for me?
I don't have much knowledge and no experience in Linux, but I figure things out pretty damn quick.

Would I be best off making a partition and trying each of them out before I get rid of XP completely? What size partition would I need, at the largest?

Sorry for the tower of questions...one more though, would I need to download all the drivers after installing one of these, and which ones most likely?

I have searched for answers like these, but I think they're hiding from me or I'm not looking in the right places.

 

Okie dokie.

Haha I can't find the download...The ones I can find are 200MB. Are they it?

Edit: Like this one

Is this one that will run inside Windows so I can just see what it's like?

 

Heh yeah, one of the links on that TinyMe site goes to the download site I linked to in my last post.
Not a problem with the short answers, I'm just happy to get them quickly. I'm so impatient when it comes to trying something new on my laptop.

I'll go see how TinyMe goes and report back, probably tomorrow...6 hours left on the download?! Heck I need a faster connection..

 

Puppy is 88MB

A quick FYI for non debian peeps.. deb has a low memory mode and will run fine on as little as 64MB's as long as you use a lighter desktop. My minimal debian machine has 32mb ram and runs fluxbox with rox.. nice..

256 runs gnome pretty well. I ran on that amount for 3 years without any real problems.. just need a decent size swap partition.

 

Thanks varnull =]
And thanks machiner and creaky too.

After I try TinyMe (2 hours left!), I'll try out Puppy and Debian as well.

Would it be better for me to try gnome or KDE do yous think? In relation to my stupid amount of RAM (240MB? Pshh..), not which one people refer. Don't wanna start another gnome/KDE debate.

 

Personally KDE has too many pretties which slows down older hardware to an unacceptable degree IMHO.. gnome has a lot of buried .net (mono) dependencies which some of us are trying to get away from, especially as they can be seen as "poisoning" a debian machine with proprietary code...

With debian the best way to get the desktop you want without all the other associated junk is to just install the core system, then use apt to add the parts you want manually (ends up just like a DSL machine only with what you want all up to date instead of 5 years behind.. hehehe.. not criticising the DSL boys, they just need to update the core sometime.).
Quite a bit of editing is involved, so give the smaller distros a go first and see how you get on with them. Tiny-me refused to install and run on a couple of my older machines.. can't explain why, but they won't run pclinux either.. something important is missing.. both are running puppy or homebrew happily.

Hey.. I see the hardware lists.. that will help no end if something like a sound driver doesn't work Good work XD

 

As much as I hate to admit, because mono does stick in my craw - Gnome has no mono dependancies. Some applications that Gnome uses do. Lenny, when released next month (hopefully) will install a version of Gnome ( the meta package "gnome-desktop", I believe) that will not install any mono corruption. However, running the meta:

# aptitude install gnome

will get you plenty.

There is a great fear that Gnome will have mono deps in the near future.

Earlier, when I suggested that running a distro that uses Gnome or KDE would be a bit much for your RAM and cpu, I wasn't kidding. People want a snappy desktop. Even if you're used to Windows being a dog on that box, I KNOW you've heard that Linux is faster than Windows - and it is, but....

Running Debian with Gnome (say, its default disc 1 install) will not give you a snappy desktop on that hardware. Could you tweak it? Yeah, sure. You could get there, but top-down is silly.

Snappy is relative, of course, as my statement has been disagreed with. Rightly so for discourse and edification. There are ways to set up Debian to run pretty sweet with very limited RAM and hardware. Most people aren't gonna like this at all. This type of setup requires one to take advantage of programs that are very different than the ones a big DE comes with. This, taken with your relative newness to things Linux, is exactly why I am sticking to my guns and recommending Puppy over Debian all day for your hardware.

Puppy is no joke and comes as a pretty complete setup. Setting it up is a snap, too. If you had 512MB RAM, I'd rather see you in Debian with a light Gnome install or Xfce4. You'd get the apps that you need to find your way around and config your system quickly. Before any level of frustration set in, if it ever did.

Al in all, all of the postings in this thread can be correct, subject to expectations and perception, nonetheless correct.

Games aren't going to run well at all with your board's built-in Intel graphics. Except for 2d ones, but don't expect to have me frag your ass in Nexuiz

If you go with LXDE or IceWM from a net install (Debian beta 2 Lenny installer) you can probably be pretty happy, too. And you'd get Debian, which is always a plus.

net installer (be plugged in ethernet, not a "must" but it sure helps) -- choose standard system and laptop when it comes time to install your apps -- nothing else!

After Grub installs you'll reboot to a terminal prompt - become root straight away - comment out your cd sources in the /etc/apt/sources.list file, (# nano /etc/apt/sources.list, enter) add mirrors close to you, no doubt there are plenty of references on this forum, save and close the file; ctrl+x, y, enter...run:

# aptitude update (or you can use # apt-get)
# aptitude install (all-the-crap-you-want) lxde - or - icewm xorg build-essential

That will get you a desktop. If you feel like you want to run a pretty front end to your package management, Synaptic, then go ahead and install it. If you don't want to type startx each time you log in to get to your desktop, then install kdm or gdm, too.

Don't forget to learn about the Toshiba issues with Linux, ie, the fan.

 

Still tossing up between Puppy and TinyMe, but I'll figure out which after using them both for a little bit.

Thanks for the help guys =]

 

I've just been playing around with Xfce the last couple of days out of curiosity while I was in a formatting mood and had a fully up to date package cache... I've gotta admit, I'm sold, its perfect for a minimalist like myself. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it even for high spec systems, just very nice, clean and simple.

 

It all depends what you do with your system on a daily basis..

I like fluxbox and rox myself for pure "balls to the wall" speed and minimalism, but usually I run older hardware anyway so waiting a few seconds for something to launch doesn't really bother me. I'm very much the kind of person who builds a machine to do a specific job, and then takes it apart again when the job is done. The 3.4 gig 64 machine is just for doing multimedia.. this older twin is general purpose and full of all kinds of crap to deal with all the M$ files people give me to sort out (and why the bloody .net dependencies with mono and ooxml and chm and that kind of XXXX ) and another old p2 400 does audio ripping, and only audio ripping.. It's nice having the space for a lot of hardware.. and much more economic with time if you can just set a machine up and leave it getting on with it while you do something else.

 

Grr...
I tried running a TinyMe Live CD, and I got an error...I've tried searching for it, but I can't find the specific problem anywhere, and I get lost reading all this Linux talk.
This is what I got:
(==)Using config file "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
Parse error on line 60 of section Monitor in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf
"Flat" is not a valid keyword in this section.
(EE)Problem parsing the config file.

From what I've read it means I need to change something in the config file? Is that what it means, and how would I go about doing that?

 

Just tried to run it from a live CD, I didn't install it.



After that message came up I pressed exit a couple of times and it went back to some login screen. If I get that monitor error thing fixed, will it go back to that login screen? And what exactly do I use for the login name and password?