Linux Distro Suggestions

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a good Linux distro which installs without many problems and can support the normal display and external monitors at a different resolution without any problems or the need to do lots of hacking?

I have successfull hacked many aspects of my Linpus distro but would like something which just runs

Best,

rod

 

Try some live-cd's and pick the one which work, i know Mandriva 209.1 works well just like Ubuntu 9.04

 

Try the live cd of Kuki linux. Should run everything on AA1 without needing any tweaks!

 

Thanks for the tip. I will do. So far I have tried Mandriva and Fedora, both are nice but seem a little CPU intense.

 

100 distros, 100 opinions... You're going to get a bazillion different recommendations.

People seem to like Ubuntu. I've never used it so I can't say one way or the other.

I myself am a Gentoo geek, so that recommendation is out because requires quite a bit of tweaking and a decent command of the command line interface.

When using the other distros, did you turn off any services that weren't needed? Those can eat up your CPU like no one's business.
Also, you may want to switch to a lighter desktop environment. Say, something like fluxbox instead of KDE/Gnome. I hear good things about xfce as well, but haven't given it a try yet. For Fedora, have you checked the sub-forum for any ways to lighten the load on the CPU?

My box is sitting here idle, and both "cores" are below 1% active combined. (running gnome & compiz-fusion). I only peg the CPU when compiling something.

 

Yes true many opinions....

I will give Gentoo a try, I must admit I did like Kuki however the wifi light did not work properly - which is quite important as a I fly a lot. Also there were problems when I attached a remote monitor and wanted to set resolutions or use multiple displays. Otherwise though I liked it, it was fast, responsive and very pleasant.

 

I'd recommend against Gentoo if you aren't looking to do a lot of tweaking. If you decide to go that route, I can give you my xorg and kernel config files to save you some time. Be easy enough to add another monitor section for the external.

It's also going to take you a fair amount of time to get a working system too. Can get a working bare-bones OS going in about an hour, but if you want Gnome/KDE/whatever, and firefox, and who knows what else, you're looking at at least a day with the horsepower the netbook puts out.

 

I have used a hundred gazillion of Linux distributions in the last 15 Years. Since the aspire one has such a weak battery, the most important thing for me is fast startup and shutdown times and also a working suspend mode. This rules out practically all distributions besides the stock linpus and moblin. I like linpus better because you can use the fedora package repository and I need a few tools that are standard for linux, but may be a little odd for the typical netbook user. Linpus also supports all AAO hardware out of the box while moblin does not.

I would have liked it better, if linpus was based on ubuntu or debian, but you can't have everything. I tried ubuntu but it's a drag - booting takes ages, gnome is sluggish on AAO 110 and it also uses more power. Not to mention all the fiddling around until all hardware is supported.

I recommend staying with linpus and rather take some time for the external monitor thing (sorry, can't help you there) than using even more time for trying to get a different distribution working and still have to solve your two-display-problem. The stock linpus from acer actually works surprisingly well if you don't have too specific needs.

 

Yes. the battery life is an issue. As for distributions Linpus so far is not perfect or very nice to look at but atleast it works fully, the others are all problematic in some way. That said I did try Kuki it looks very nice, but wifi in all forms refused to work. Therefore I think I shall stick with Linpus.