Myria Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Well as long as I know, Linux should work just fine in laptops too but... -> I have installed Linux for my main PC few times and I got this "good" idea of installing a Linux on my laptop. So I started my quest with Red Hat 8.0 - Opened CD-drive and inserted the CD inside then bootted it BUT that's when the problems started. Right before I get to choose what I install etc stuff the thing started "looking for hdd" (don't remember what it said exactly) and BANG it frozed. Everytime it freezes to that same point. I have tried with two different Linux distros. It tries to test my laptop's hdd or something and it freezes... - So does anyone know whats the matter? It works just fine with Window's (XP). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint0 Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 not sure, but i *think* linux doesnt work too well on laptops, please let me proven wrong though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myria Posted March 8, 2004 Author Share Posted March 8, 2004 For some reason im starting to think that way too >_> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 linux works BEAUTIFULLY on most laptops. For instance, running windows XP, my Toshiba Satellite 1110 gets 2 hours of battery life, MAX (not doing much work). With Red Hat on there it lasted 6 hours while compiling a kernel (which is pretty intensive). That alone makes me keep linux on my laptop, as that is a huge difference. Red Hat 8.0 didn't have very good laptop support of any kind. I'd go for a newer distro. Mandrake 10.0 would be my choice at the moment because the 2.6 kernel adds quite a bit of extra laptop support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xEonBuRn Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 I have both Windows XP Pro and Gentoo Linux on my Dell Inspiron 8500... they both work great... there are a few drawbacks in linux though... 1. I have a broadcom based wireless card which has to be set up special... sort of a pain but it works fine once you get it installed ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net 2. Dell has crappy soundcards in their laptops. I have to use the intelx8 (or something like that) drivers for linux... and they don't offer software sound mixing support, so if I'm playing an MP3 with AIM open, the AIM sounds won't play until after the song ends... not a big deal though. 3. Ever since kernel 2.6.1 I've been having a weird problem with my USB mouse/keyboard combo that I can't seem to fix but I've found a way around it. 4. I haven't even tried to set up my modem yet, since I'm on a university LAN... don't know how to do that yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kongit Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 arrrg it works fine on me laptop matey. :pirate: The only thing that won't work is my wireless card, and that is because of a problem with libc. It should work on your pc. The other thing that won't work on linux is my printer, but that is a problem from dell. ITs te drivers arrrg, te drivers matey. Now whenever that project that lets you use windows drivers on linux gets off the ground we be in right good shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Derf Veteran Posted March 8, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 8, 2004 not sure, but i *think* linux doesnt work too well on laptops, please let me proven wrong though.. Tradionally Linux did not offer great power management or PCMCIA support. This problem will be solved if you use a newer kernel (even the 2.4.xx branch nevermind the 2.6.x branch) So unless he uncrates a really old distro then he should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Linux will run fine on notebooks. Unfortunately, it will require a little bit more knowledge to set up an installation on a notebook then it will on a desktop pc. Today, most notebooks come with b0rked ACPI implementations which will result in having to patch the kernel for being able to see battery stats, do powersave things, etc (depends on your notebook). For many notebooks there are guides how to fix these things, but it still will require a little bit of work. Besides, that it will work really really well. My notebook (BenQ Joybook 5000, rather no-name, I guess ;)) does run longer in Linux then it did in Windows, and also runs better (no graphic glitches due to bad ATI drivers) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splatnix Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 I'm on my laptop right now, granted it's an older Dell Latitude CPi-A. I won't list all of the distros that work on this thing, but the earliest I can remember running was RH6.2 or some such thing. Have a 2.4.20 or higher kernel, and just make sure your hardware is supported and you're golden. All newer distros detect the hardware most of the time. Only thing I had to play with here was the SMC IrCC FIR IrDA port (wow, that's a mouthfull!) - it was stuck in SIR mode in some older distros, but a 2.4.22 or higher kernel had it working in FIR mode just fine without playing. For your issue: 1. How new is your laptop? Make/Model? If it's too new, RH8 probably doesn't support your hardware. 2. Have you tried running the installer in text mode? SuSE, Mandrake and Fedora Core kept crapping out on the laptop with the graphical installer in random places, but the text mode installer was flawless. Distros using text mode only installers (Slackware, Debian, Gentoo) have all installed without issue on this laptop. If #2 doesn't work, I would follow the advice here and snag a newer distro. Since you're trying RH8, just get Fedora Core 1 (not, I repleat, NOT the FC2 beta - though you can try at your own risk if you want a built in 2.6 kernel) or Mandrake 10 (as MR_Candyman stated). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 8, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 8, 2004 I have a Dell Latitude LS, and it runs Mandrake 9.1 well. It's an older laptop, so a bit sluggish, but functional. :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myria Posted March 9, 2004 Author Share Posted March 9, 2004 Re-eally? Hmm! I guess I need to find Mandrake then and try out that :) Thanks for the answers guys~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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