So I'm putting linux on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite P105-S9337).

I'm a fan of rpm based linux like CentOS, Fedora; however, I won't limit my options just for that. What I"m looking for maximum compatibility of the OS to the hardware. I know that sometimes its a PITA to get drivers for soundcard/wireless/whatever on laptops.

What distros do you guys use, and how smooth did the install go/how was it finding drivers?

thanks

1/14/2011 8:32:42 AM

I think there is a laptop Linux forum, go there search your model. That's how I picked mine for my old Asus gaming laptop.

[Edited on January 14, 2011 at 9:45 AM. Reason : Effing auto correct.]

1/14/2011 9:44:58 AM

I've installed Ubuntu on several laptops without any trouble. It recognized that it needed proprietary nVidia and Wireless drivers and gave me the option to install them.

1/14/2011 12:11:10 PM

^

ubuntu (10+) works pretty well from my experience.

haven't tried fedora in a few years but as i recall I didn't have to tweak it very much to get stuff to work either.

1/14/2011 12:27:40 PM

ubuntu works pretty well on my hp. only issues i have with it is that my bluetooth drivers kinda suck and there's some pixelation when i play videos that doesn't occur on windows 7 (mediocre video drivers for my video card)

the install is absolutely painless so it'd be worth a shot.

1/14/2011 12:44:27 PM

I had wireless n issues with ubuntu 9 but that may be done now.

1/14/2011 1:12:18 PM

^wireless n worked fine for me on 10.10

1/14/2011 1:57:19 PM

i like fedora

but then again i'm weird

1/14/2011 2:57:41 PM

I think I'm gonna give fedora 12 a shot, and if sound doesn't work with that then I'll try Ubuntu.

1/14/2011 3:32:59 PM

windows 7

1/14/2011 4:32:02 PM

^^ why FC12 and not FC14?

1/14/2011 7:16:58 PM

b/c I asked someone at work since he had his laptop there, and he had no issues with FC12, so I've decided to start with that first.

currently posting from my laptop using 64bit fc12.

1/14/2011 8:11:47 PM