Linux for laptops

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alloneword

Linux for laptops

Post by alloneword » Mon Jun 13, 2005 12:29 am

Hi all.
I was just wondering what people here thought was a good linux for laptops. Specifically from the point of view of hardware support (for laptop specific things, like wireless, and CPU throttling).

And also the easiest for connecting to different Wireless lans, and changing settings for different wireless lans. Are their any conf tools that are made for storing Wireless lan configs, so it is easy to re-apply them when moving around different hot spots. For example, using it at Uni, then also using it at home with different setups.

Cheers.

PS (Can we email questions to the address on the contact page?? :) Is that what it is there for? Thanks )

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dann
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Post by dann » Mon Jun 13, 2005 2:36 am

Yes, feel free to email anything you want to the techshow@thelinuxlink.net.

As for Linux on laptops, I've been successful with just about any distro I have tried. I prefer slackware, debian or ubuntu though. But then again, I don't use too many gui tools for configured my systems. That being said, aside from the wireless card and perhaps sound in some cases, pretty much everything else has worked out of the box (don't know about modems though, don't use those anymore).

Wireless has been wonky to date. If you managed to get a card that is supported in the kernel you are in luck. Chances are, though, that if your laptop has a wireless adapter built-in it is a broadcom which will require some tweaking. You may be able to get the nds-wrapper to work using the windows drivers; but I don't know if there are any distros that set this up in their software. It may require extra steps on your part.

I'll see about tracking down some decent wireless cards for linux or maybe someone else will post. I've been sticking with the dwl-122, a usb 802.11b (pretty outdated now) using the linux wlan-ng drivers (but with 2.6.x kernels it has been very problematic).

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CptnObvious999
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Post by CptnObvious999 » Mon Jun 13, 2005 11:30 am

I think the 2 best distros for hardware detection are probly SuSE and Ubuntu

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