Best Linux package for a laptop?

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Wed Nov 14, 2001 2:03 pm

I'm considering installing linux on my celly 650 laptop if it ever arrives. While Redhat should work fine, I'm wondering if their is another installation that might be geared specifically toward portable machines?

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Wed Nov 14, 2001 7:33 pm

I'm not aware of any Linux distro geared towards laptops. I installed SuSE 7.0 on a laptop and it worked without a problem, it even detected and installed my PCMCIA NIC correctly during setup (other distros like Mandrake 7 or RedHat 6 failed).

Are you experienced with a specific distro on your PC ? If so, just try it on your laptop.

There are a couple webpages with specific help on Linux-Laptops.

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://www.mobilix.org/howtos.html
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO.html

These are just some links, you'll find more on google.
I can post more general info when this will be your first Linux eXPerience

JD · Post by JD » Thu Nov 15, 2001 5:43 pm

Does anybody know the FTP where you can get SuSE or Mandrake?

Also, bitSLAP, you might want to check out FreeBSD for your laptop. I myself am a big freeBSD supporter. Check it out: http://www.freebsd.org

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 6:31 pm

JD

Does anybody know the FTP where you can get SuSE or Mandrake?

Well, you should know that most distro manufacturers have direct links to their downloadable ISO's on their homepage.
You can also try http://www.linuxiso.org to download Linux ISO's.
SuSE does not provide ISO images of their distribution but you can download Eval-ISO from above mentioned webpage.

Also, bitSLAP, you might want to check out FreeBSD for your laptop. I myself am a big freeBSD supporter. Check it out: http://www.freebsd.org

FreeBSD is a nice, clean and secure Linux but in my eyes mainly targeted at servers and it's probably not really newbie friendly.
I have to admit I haven't tried FreeBSD yet. My next project after my dedicated SuSE 7.3 PC will be to put Debian on my Laptop, they're close to a new stable release.

Did you try other distro's besides FreeBSD yet?Mandrake is mainly the newbie friendly RedHat.

hammer01 · Post by **hammer01** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 6:41 pm

I am with doc on this one, I like Red Hat but any distro should work fine, and as long as you use kernel 2.4.14 (actually I believ any 2.4 kernel should work fine) it should detect all of your hardware just fine. Welcome to the ranks of true geekdom.

JD · Post by JD » Thu Nov 15, 2001 8:55 pm

I was on SuSE's site, and they try to hide the FTP so people will just go out and buy it. Also, I do use freeBSD in server applications, but it would be worth looking into for a laptop user. It may be a bit confusing for a newbie though. And speaking of newbies, the most user freindly install I've have ever dealt with is caldera's Open Linux. It is very straight forward. I've got a copy laying around if you don't have the bandwidth to download it yourself. Let me know.

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 9:25 pm

JD

I tried a couple distros too and SuSE was the most newbie friendly so far. I tried Caldera OL 1.3 and it was already way ahead compared to RedHat back in the days.
SuSE does not provide full ISO of their distro BUT you can get the Intel 7.3 Live Evaluation iso (runs from cd only) ~640megs at http://www.linuxiso.org/ .

hammer01

True, 2.4.14 is the latest stable kernel but no distro comes with it ... the latest kernel in any distro is 2.4.10 (SuSE 7.3).
A nice place to compare distro for kernel and packages versions is http://www.distrowatch.com/ .

Right now I'm waiting on mobo RMA from Asus (they're SLOW with it) to finally build my first dedicated Linux PC based on SuSE 7.3 Professional. I really can't wait.

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Mon Nov 19, 2001 9:54 pm

I'm not _quite_ a newB. I've had various versions of Redhat and Slackware running before, just never on a lappy.

Well I've downloaded 2+ gigs of the SuSE dist so far, and the bitch is still going

Doc: Did it set up your pcmcia nic at the beginning of setup, so you could download via the installer, or did you download the whole distribution first and burn it?

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Tue Nov 20, 2001 5:54 pm

LOL 4.3 gigs downloaded now and still going!! I'm gonna get this thing

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Tue Nov 20, 2001 7:46 pm

I wonder where you're downloading this one ... well, I found once all 7 CD's from SuSE 7.0 on a german uni-ftp ... and I downloaded all of them, ~ 4.5 gigs.

I have a D-Link DFE-650 PCMCIA NIC and SuSE 7.0 found it right away during installation on my laptop and I had no big problems using it for networking after final setup. Alone this feature made me chose SuSE over RH and Mandrake cause both (RD 6 and MD 7.x) didn't find it during setup. It can be rather cryptic for a newbie to setup PCMCIA in Linux.

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Tue Nov 20, 2001 9:29 pm

I'm using different ones right of the website. ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu is the fastest though.

What is the file/folder structure for the CDs?

Thanks for your help...

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Wed Nov 21, 2001 9:10 am

Oh, you wanna do a FTP-install .... something I've never done before, so I don't know how this works.

I can only suggest that you read the readme files on the FTP.

The FTP-version of SuSE Linux 7.3 (i386) is available since yesterday
(Nov. 15, 2001) afternoon (GMT) on ftp.suse.com in /pub/suse/i386/7.3
The size of that directory is approx. 6000 MB.

Maybe this page helps:
http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/lmuelle_ ... ernet.html

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Wed Nov 21, 2001 11:22 am

Yes. I'm almost done actually (5.4 gigs). What I'm wondering is if the CDs should be burnt in a certain manner. ie. the rps/rpm folder cut up alphabetically.

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Wed Nov 21, 2001 5:26 pm

Oh well, I think giving you a complete rundown on the SuSE CD folder structure for all 7 CD's of the SuSE Linux 7.3 Professional would be quite something ... and I read in one of the emails that the structure is not necessarily the same between CD and FTP ... plus all the commercial packes are also missing in the FTP ...
It might be the easiest (when you have another PC) to drop everything on it and run a local FTP on it and follow the via-FTP instructions.

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Wed Nov 21, 2001 8:13 pm

lol I didn't expect you to describe in detail. I just meant for example:

CD 1:
/
/setup/
/suse/images
/suse/setup
/dosutils
...

CD 2 - CD 3:
/suse/....whatever is left...

Hmmm. I tried installing from the web in VMWare and it didn't pick up the nic card. Oh well I'll get these CDs burnt out and try it. If I get everything stable, then I'll just format the lappy and put Suse on exclusively.