Q: Hey guys. I have an HP laptop I never use that I want a sort of Linux OS to install. Currently has a copy of unacitvated win xp running on, but it locked me out because I can not activate, so I can not even sign in.
can anyone recommend Linux OS (Ubuntu? Fedora? Etc.) and how to walk install based on my situation? I have NEVER used for Linux. help a dumb newb.
Re:guy why didn't you read the Linux post I made and followed it?
If you ran into problems there is even a laptop section in there, and IRC information to get help in real time chatting with people.
There was no need for this post, and one of the TOP FIVE distros on distrowatch mentioned in the post should work for you.
ALOHA
Re:it's a Nvidia GeForce FX Go5600 128MB. so should run beryl alrite.
Re:not sure yet. gotta check when i get home. hopefully it can run beryl. guessing its some sort of nvidia chipset.
Re:Well with Linux you have all these various componates that are used to build up your desktop environment like legos.
KDE and Gnome are what is known as 'desktop environments'. That is they provide collections of software, programming interfaces, and various utilities and such. Stuff like text editors, small games, office applications, and other such things.
It's very different from what you have with Windows or OS X were you have a sort of single massive unified user shell to run your applications.
And since Linux is built up in peices, like legos, you can swap out peices.
One of the things that Gnome and KDE provide (as well as Xubuntu) is a thing called a 'Window Manager'.
A Window manager is the sort of minimal requirement to have a usefull GUI in Linux.
The following bit is some background. It's not nessicary for you to know or care about this, but if your curious….
<start useless BS>
You see X Windows is a network protocol, were your X Server is like a 'client' you use to view X Windows applications which are called 'X clients'.
So… comparing X to the world wide web you have this:
X Windows == HTTP
X Server == Firefox Web browser
X Clients (X applications) == Web pages.
Makes sense? You see with Linux your applications don't have to be on the same computer as the one your running. Only the X server needs to be on your computer. Your applications can be anywere on any Linux computer you have access to.
but of course most of the time it's used just like in Windows or MacOS were your applications are on the same computer as the one your using. So in practice it's very similar environment to Windows.
Well the X server by itself doesn't do much. It controls the display and your keyboard and mouse, but by itself it's just a ugly gray screen with a ugly X-shaped mouse pointer. Completely worthless.
So you need a 'Window Manager' to manage windows. They provide a way to move windows around, provide the Windows decorations (the borders around Windows s and the window bar at the top with the 'minimize, maximize, close' buttons.) as well as numerous other usefull features that you need for the basic functionality of a desktop.
Lots of people just don't run KDE or Gnome or anything like that. It's to bloated for them. They just run a Window manager by itself.
A popular Window manager to do this with is 'Fluxbox' and that is quite popular.
<end semi-useless BS>
Well the default Window Manager for Gnome is Metacity. The default WM for KDE is Kwin.
Beryl and Compiz _replace_ those Window Managers. Beryl/Compiz are Window managers that use 3D acceleration to perform special tricks and effects on Windows.
They are drop in replacement for either Kwin or Metacity so that it doesn't realy matter which you prefer.
There are lots of howtos on how to get Beryl or Compiz running in either KDE or Gnome for Ubuntu.
What sort of video card do you have for this laptop?
Re:yeah, gonna go with ubuntu. it's my brother's laptop that he overloaded with spyware and it started to die on him so he dumped it for a mac laptop. i just reformated the HD and it runs fine
haha. it's only 2 years old, so it should be able to handle ubuntu fine.
oh, and i saw a demo of beryl. is that like gnome or KDE, but just a different shell for ubuntu? i like the fancy graphics it has. just wanted to play with it.
Re:Ubuntu is a good start.
There is lots of documentation geared towards new users aviable and the official Ubuntu forums in the past have shown to have been friendly to newbies. IRC channels and all sorts of stuff exist to help out new users.
What is very important is also what are the hardare specifications on your laptop? (cpu speed, ram, chipsets, wireless card chipset, video, etc)
This can make a difference. A lower-end computer with only about 128-256 megs of RAM probably would be better served with Xubuntu, which is based on Ubuntu but uses a lighter desktop (less features, but less ram hungry). Linux is very good on older machines, but the default Gnome or KDE environment is not good on older machines.
For yourself what you want to do is take time to look over the aviable documentation. They have FAQ pages and there are official Wiki and unofficial wikis for Ubuntu that are very usefull. (wikis, of course, are user-editable websites typically used for documentation on Linux projects).
These things hold information on common problems that people run into and standard ways of working around or information that you need to understand what is going on. You don't need to study them like you would if your going to get tested, but just reading through them fast, just glancing, while poking at your system when they say stuff that is interesting is a good way to learn how to use Linux.
That way if somebody says something like 'have you enabled the multiverse repository yet?' you can go 'ahah, I read that somewere' and you know were to go quickly to find the answer.
Otherwise through pure trial and error it can be quite frustrating at times.
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