Hi there! Welcome on board mate. From your nick, I'm guessing you're a Linux junkie. o.o? Well, I too have started loving Linux ever since I switched from Windows to it. Can you recommend some good Linux distros - free ones esp.? I'm currently stuck on Ubuntu but looking to check up on others too. Hope you can help me out with this. Cheers.
Welcome! I am also new here. I've used Elementary OS and it's pretty good and also looks aesthetically pleasing. Resembles OS X a bit.
Ah I see. Is there a LIVE disk/image available for Elementary OS? It will be easy to check it out that way instead of disturbing my current installation.
yes there is actually. You just have to download the .iso, burn it to a cd/dvd or usb, and then boot and it'll allow you to try without any type of installation. You can also go ahead and install alongside your windows or os x install.. If you need the link on how to burn it to a dvd/usb lmk.
I guess this will work as good as any other Live CD. Done pretty much of this stuff so don't really need a how-to for it. But thanks for offering to help anyway. Anyway, just wanna ask if you can recommend a good Linux distro for lower-end laptops. The one I have is an HCL and features a 1 GB RAM; not much disk space is available either. Nevertheless, it's working but Windows beats the sh*t outta it. Freezes and crashes every alternate hour. Ubuntu works much better on it but I have a bigtime problem setting up a compatible resolution. The laptop supports 1024*762 (Windows XP works fine with it) but in Ubuntu settings, the max available is 800*600. I googled a lot and tried a hell lot of solutions out, but most of it is complex coding which I suck at badly. So I figured using another distro is the best way out. Cheers.
for laptops i'd recommend "lubuntu" it's a pretty lightweight distro. As for the resolution, lubuntu is pretty much derived from ubuntu so I'm not sure that will fix your problem, but have you checked if there are drivers available for your laptop? if you look for your laptops graphic drivers, it should direct you to a "linux" driver download, not an "ubuntu" driver download, which means that if there's no linux drivers for whatever graphic card you might have, then there's just no drivers at all for linux. I believe there's no specific drivers for ubuntu or whatever other distro you might use.
I use Ubuntu 10.10 mostly (not the derivatives) for the love of Gnome Desktop (which has been removed after 10.10, I guess). I tried using Xubuntu (XCFE desktop-based), the lightest Ubuntu distro but it results in the same problem. Well, drivers are there but most of them are proprietary and not free. The free ones and those meant generally for any Linux-based distro have to be compiled manually. They do not come assembled and ready-to-use directly in a .deb pack. I've to edit a chunk of code before they work compatibly and as I suck at it, it consumes a lot time and I tend to give up 99% of the times. Actually, most of the Linux-based distros come with inbuilt drivers for most of the hardware and don't need you to download any additional stuff. In my case, nothing seems to work so ultimately I figure out that a new distro designed especially for old-hat and low config laptops would be the ideal solution. On the other hand, I'm considering dumping my old laptop and buying a new one, but wanna give it a last shot before I actually do it.
Ahh I see. give lubuntu a try, i believe it is even more lightweight than xubuntu. Another thing I'd recommend if you're buying a new laptop, is to buy a chromebook, they are nice and stylish, and most importantly, cheap. You can also install linux on them =).