Which Linux?

[TheFaQQer]

I've had it with Windows now - machine kept crashing with XP, so I installed Windows 7. Keeps crashing - at least once a day - even when there is nothing going on, it crashes overnight. (And it's just crashed as I typed this )

So, I'm going to scrap the Windows stuff and go with Linux. The precious few bits that I need Windows to do, I'll run in a VM under Linux.

BUT - which distro are we recommending? We did this back in January, and there were a few suggestions, but I'm asking again to see if the opinions have changed. I've just tried SUSE 11.1 Live to see what that was like and it seemed OK - but by default the live distro only picked up one of my two graphics cards, and insisted on showing the same thing on two monitors (I have 1 card with 2 monitors connected, another with 1 connected). Might just be a live distro problem, though, I hope.

Poll to follow.

[chicane]

I've had it with Windows now - machine kept crashing with XP, so I installed Windows 7. Keeps crashing - at least once a day - even when there is nothing going on, it crashes overnight. (And it's just crashed as I typed this )

Are you sure you don't have some kind of hardware problem?

[TheFaQQer]

Are you sure you don't have some kind of hardware problem?

I don't think so - I suspect that there are some drivers dodgy in the mix somewhere, but I can't for the life of me work it out.

Memory check shows no problem. Hard drives were brand new last month when I installed Windows 7 on them. Graphics cards are brand new because the old ones started to fail.

I guess it could be the motherboard, but I'd rather bin Windows and see if that is still the problem before I start thinking about a new motherboard.

[DimPrawn]

I tried UBuntu a couple of weeks ago.

Initial impressions were good, but it insisted on doing a windows style update (patching itself I guess).

On reboot it never got past the boot loader screen.

I scrubbed it and tried again. Same problem.

Utter tulipe.

[RichardCranium]

I put Ubuntu on my dual monitor laptop and it would not behave in any way other than to show the same image on both screens. I could not even convince it to use the higher resolution of the external monitor.

[Dark Black]

I've run various flavours of Ubuntu over the years and always found it to be well put together and stable.

If you like minimalist, try Crunchbang (which is based on Ubuntu)... very black

I have Linpus on my Netbook which is based on Fedora and also seems nice and stable.

HTH

[administrator]

Are you sure you don't have some kind of hardware problem?

WHS +1

As you said thpigh FaQQer, could be dodgy drivers but personally I would get XP on and debug the mofo to try and find the problem.

I tried UBuntu a couple of weeks ago.

Initial impressions were good, but it insisted on doing a windows style update (patching itself I guess).

On reboot it never got past the boot loader screen.

I scrubbed it and tried again. Same problem.

Utter tulipe.

Shame. When stable it is a really good OS. Could have tried sticking the install CD in again and booting it up. Anyone with a bit of tech nous could have sorted it from there with a bit of Googling I am sure

I put Ubuntu on my dual monitor laptop and it would not behave in any way other than to show the same image on both screens. I could not even convince it to use the higher resolution of the external monitor.

Two years ago I spent a whole weekend trying to get this sorted on a desktop machine, got there in the end and recently dist-upgraded the machine and the dual monitor set up still works

As this is on a laptop then it will probably not be an easy solution as a lot of them tend to be onboard graphics chips by the likes of Intel. If you have a NVIDIA or ATI card then it becomes a bit easier and there are better drivers out there that when I did it.

Prawn and RC highlight important points though, any Linux distro is still a little way from being a stable Desktop OS. It is fun to fiddle though. I guess the thing to do would be to chuck the live CD in, boot into it and have a good few hours playing with it (assuming it works OK) and see if the machine behaves itself. Maybe even leave it like this overnight and see if it dies too. If all OK get a spare hard drive and plug this in, install to this drive and if it all goes pear-shaped then you have not killed your Windows partition and can easily switch back to this.

Good luck!

[DimPrawn]

Shame. When stable it is a really good OS. Could have tried sticking the install CD in again and booting it up. Anyone with a bit of tech nous could have sorted it from there with a bit of Googling I am sure.

If you can't drag it and drop it, I'm out.

HTH

[minestrone]

Linux to me is something to host your server with, any time I have played about with the desktop I think "that is why Gates is rich"

I would use ububtu as that is what I use for my servers. They are all pretty much the same really.

[Sysman]

As this is on a laptop then it will probably not be an easy solution as a lot of them tend to be onboard graphics chips by the likes of Intel. If you have a NVIDIA or ATI card then it becomes a bit easier and there are better drivers out there that when I did it.

It's ages since I used Linux, but I seemed to end up buying a new video card for each major release. That PC had an onboard graphics chip which I found best to ignore.