Another "Which Best OS For?" Thread

Hi guys, ive just recently acquired an Acer Aspire 751h. On the whole its pretty decent, (bar the freezing issues) it came pre-loaded with Vista Home Basic which I got rid of and installed Linux (bit of a newbie).

For the past month ive been on a mission to find which Linux distro works best. The results? Not one!

Here's what ive tried:

Jolicloud: Worked ok to start with, but when upon closing the lid to enter hibernation mode it doesn't wake up again forcing restart. Also issues with the battery indicator level icon.
UNR: Felt way too slow, netbook-launcher doesn't work well for some reason, wasn't impressed.
Ubuntu 9.10: Issues with sound, sound driver doesn't reload after hibernation. Couldn't get it to work.
Linux Mint 8: (Same as Ubuntu 9.10)
Fedora 12: Couldn't install from USB!
Moblin: Doesn't work with the 751h!

So yeah, ive tried and tested quite a few distro's! None seem to work for me or have full functionality

My question is then, anyone with a 751h have any recommendations as to which other Linux distro I could try? Which ones have worked best for you?

Thank you so much.

 

Kuki! You get a custom kernel and it uses XFCE, so it should be speedier than the Gnome variants you tried.

 

Thank you very much for the speedy reply Pierre!

I will definately give Kuki a go thanks. I didn't try it before as I had read that it wasn't supported anymore? How was Kuki for you? (if you've tried it) Require alot of setup?

 

Just installed Kuki. Hasn't detected the wireless card though! How would I fix that? I can connect to the internet via ethernet but not wireless

EDIT: Also suspend doesn't work properly, requires restart to bring it back to life

 

Not sure about the wireless. Basically Kuki worked out of the box for my AA1 ZG5, and the custom kernel made it a little snappier and quicker. They also have a forum of their own so you can ask around, maybe there already are threads dealing with your issue there.

 

Well, I didn't keep Kuki on there for long. Required too much tinkering/work arounds to get things to function correctly.

Ive just downloaded Kubuntu 9.10 on the 751h and I must say I am very impressed with it. Orginally I thought with KDE environment it might of slowed the 751h down a bit (especially as I only have 1gb RAM) but it feels very quick and haven't noticed any slow downs. I thought about installing the netbook remix variant of Kubuntu but to be honest I much rather prefer actual desktop versions.

Everything apart from the drivers for the Intel GMA 500 worked fine. I downloaded the poulsbo drivers externally so that wasn't a problem. Even picked up the wireless card first time too! The problems I had with sound in Ubuntu 9.10 aren't present in Kubuntu 9.10 which is weird? But oh well it works so I cant complain! Very impressed so far.

 

Hi try the Fluxbox version of Mint Linux, It's much quicker then Mint Linux 8 Helena.

http://netbook-experience.com/2010/03/m ... -netbooks/

Cheers
John M

 

On an older version of Mint the wireless didn't work straight away. With Mint 8 (Helena) it does. Maybe this post can help fix the problem for you.

http://netbook-experience.com/2010/02/h ... spire-one/

 

Just last week my new Acer Aspire One Netbook arrived. AAO 10.1" Netbook: Atom N470 processor, 2Gb of RAM and 160Gb hard-drive.

Using Unetbootin (USB installer for Linux), I started as a "Live" OS -- the following, in this order:
I first loaded Kuki/Linux (an Ubuntu-based distro made specifically for AAO Netbooks) ... nice but, I'm not too keen on the way Ubuntu uses Xfce.
Secondly, Loaded LinuxMint-9 Xfce ... I like the way Mint does things over a straight Ubuntu.
Third distro I tried was Fedora 12 Xfce ... I like Fedora's rolling release but not as familiar with RPM as I am with DEB.
The fourth and last Linux distro I tried was #!Crunchbang 'Statler' (based on Debian Squeeze) - with Openbox WM (x32-bit). Liked this so much installed it, straight away.

When I saw that familiar black #!Crunchbang wallpaper, the Openbox Menu and the tint2 panel ... I knew I was 'home' :lol:

Everything worked out of the box with #!Statler ... Wireless, WiFi, proper screen resolution ... well, everything works.

Regarding WiFi ... I did like the ease and simplicity of Wicd, but Network Manager works and connects to the various WiFi sites, so much better than Wicd did.

When, looking at the partitions in gParted (partition editor) ...
Windows used about 27Gb of disk-space - and I hadn't done anything with it (not even the initial updates)
#!Crunchbang only used 1.7Gb of space - even after all 345 updates were installed.

:| I thought I would keep the pre-installed Windows XP on a small partition, in the back of the drive ... you know, just in-case.
Well, that lasted all of "5 minutes" ... I wiped Windows completely off the Netbooks hard-drive on the 2nd day.

I am extremely happy with my new Aspire One Netbook and #!Crunchbang 'Statler' (Debian Squeeze) with the Openbox WM (x32-bit)