I am toying with setting up my Vista laptop to dual boot to Linux. Any recommendations out there as to which distribution I should use?
I have tried Knoppix Live CD version, as it didn’t require installing anything to the harddrive, and was immediately turned off by the limitation of display resolution to a 1024×768 max.
Any thoughts on this subject?
Update: Thanks to everyone who left a comment (and do feel free to keep adding them).
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October 9th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I’ve toyed a little with Ubuntu on a live CD on one of my notebooks.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Without a doubt Ubuntu is the best way to go. Good Usergroup support and many folks (including myself) have had great success getting it running on laptops.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Posting about religion now, eh? :>
October 9th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Since I’ve been using it exclusively for two years on both a tower PC and a laptop from Dell (Ubuntu preinstalled), I’ll add to the chorus of Ubuntu fans. There is a caveat: the next version (8.10) is due out this month. WAIT until its release before downloading the LiveCD and test-driving it.
The current version (8.04) has some known issues and as I understand from the forums, they’ve been addressed in the next major release (which comes out every 6 months).
The learning curve is a little steeper than for Windows if you want to do fancy stuff, but for the basic browse/Office and misc. multimedia, it’s easy and works very well.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I’m a fan of Fedora myself. Unfortunately the download is incredibly large. Ubuntu’s probably the best option for you.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
The machine I’m using right now dual boots Vista and Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is the best choice for most applications.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’ll echo the Ubuntu rec.–easy to add/upgrade software
I also have used Xandros and like it.
One sticking issue I often have is some hardware support. I started buying printers, etc..that explicitly are supported by Linux distros, but it can be a bear to get some of my older stuff to work.
The lightweight, Xubuntu, is a good distro to use on old computers for basic tasks–it breathes life into a 128RAM machine.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
PS – If you go the Ubuntu route, check out the Wubi installer–it works like a charm if you want to keep Vista on the laptop and the whole partition thing makes you nervous!
October 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I personally have a few issues with how Ubuntu is run… but as a “newbie to Linux” distribution it’s probably the best choice.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
The consensus here seems to be Ubuntu, but I would also suggest Mandriva as well. It’s based off of Red Hat, and I’ve found it to be great. Setup is really easy, and I haven’t ever really had any problems with it.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Forgot to mention re: display resolution.
I think the Ubuntu LiveCD is locked in at the industry standard res. for broadest compatibility. You can change the res. once it’s installed to the hard drive, but obviously you can’t install additional software/drivers/etc. to a read-only CDROM. It’s a minor drawback of the LiveCD, but since the thing is mainly intended as a test of whether the OS will run on your machine (and whether you like it), it’s a trade-off.
If your machine has an Nvidia display adapter, it will say something about “restricted software,” which is just another way of saying “proprietary.” It’s nothing to be concerned about. Once you enable that driver after installation (assuming you have Nvidia), you get more functionality.
Your school’s MIS department (or a helpful CompSci major wanting extra credit) might be able to help you out to some extent if need be.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I would have to recommend Ubuntu. Ubuntu definitely makes using patent-encumbered codecs (think MP3, AAC, etc) and restricted drivers (like the nvidia video driver) easy, and it’s just generally easy for new users. Regardless of which distribution you use, the most important thing is your attitude. I have converted a few people over from Windows to Ubuntu, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they maintain a positive attitude. Like the saying goes, whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:53 am
yes. ubuntu is the way to go.
nahhh…..just joking. you know i’m completely ignorant about these things.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:51 am
[...] so based on some online reading and on the kind recommendations of numerous readers, I set my laptop up as a dual-boot Vista/Ubuntu system. I went by the [...]
October 14th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
MeToo on Ubuntu. For a starter (or even finisher) distro, it’s got a heck of a lot to recomend itself. This from someone w/ 20+ years Unix experience and 10+ w/ multiple flavors of Linux.