Replying to Linux + Laptop = No No?

I've had several friends, and some professors, that have linux installed on their laptops without any problems. I don't know how the BIOS could get screwed up through using Linux, but if anything happens, you can "unscrew" it up with a flash overwrite (or whatever it's technically called). I would dual-boot if I were you, just so you don't get all freaked out by the switch. Keep it as a play-thing at first, and then begin to rely on it once you understand how it works, that way you won't risk getting your data screwed up (VERY BAD and VERY POSSIBLE). Once you feel comfortable with it, go for the gusto and switch cold-turkey.

I would recommend getting a "hold your hand" type *nix like Ubuntu first, just to get the flavor of *nix, and then move into something deeper like Debian or BSD.

well i have been running fedora core 6 on my laptop since it came out and before that i had fedora core 5. its a great operating system!! both have seemed to run on my latop very well. i have been running it on my main system for ages before i put it on the laptop, and i think the onyl reason that i out it on the laptop was it worked so well in my desktop!

my laptop isn't the greatest of machines (256mb memory shared graphics, 40gb hard drive, amd sempron mobile 3000+) but it still runs fedora well.

the only thing that wont work on my laptop is the wireless network card, but that was no suprise to me anyway!

I asked this in another thread, but what Linux distro runs easily on an AMD dual core? Someone told me that AMD X2 doesn't support linux yet. but if it does, what's a distro that is easy to use and set up for someone who hardly has any experience with it?

Any Linux distribution that allows SMP in the kernel can support dual core machines.

xboxrulz

I have laptop with Windows XP home installed. Then I installed Ubuntu for my second OS. I'm become ubuntu fans since Ubuntu 5.04 until now Ubuntu 6.10. Ubuntu very easy to use and very nice hardware detection. I've Fedora Core 5 on my laptop but I remove it again because i'm not comfortable with it.

Because ubuntu based on debian, the think that i like is about the easy way for installing or uninstalling packet using apt-get. For GUI packet manager synaptic is rock!. Just select packet that you want to install and forget the dependencies.

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Well, i'd want one if i could afford it. Since I can't, why keep wishing?

lol, true ... but not all people want a Mac (not saying I don't want one, I'm dying to get one myself)

xboxrulz

If you want to have *iux on a laptop: buy a mac.

I asked this in another thread, but what Linux distro runs easily on an AMD dual core? Someone told me that AMD X2 doesn't support linux yet. but if it does, what's a distro that is easy to use and set up for someone who hardly has any experience with it?

I run Slackware 10.2 on my Dell 600m with no problems at all. Granted, I had to go through the trouble of making sure everything was configured correctly, but nonetheless everything works. After the install there were a few things that didn't work "out of the box". Such as my...

sound
wifi
monitor settings

I had to install ndiswrapper to get my wifi working, but that was cake. Just a few commands and scripts, and everything was peachy keen. I had to install ATI's proprietary drivers to get my LCD resolution to 1400x1050 (the way I like it). The default resolution was 1280x1024 or whatever it is, which would be fine, but I like higher res. My sound works after playing around with alsamixer.

Since this is a laptop, I had to make sure to build the kernel with the ACPI option. This make lets Linux know that this system is a laptop, so it'll have battery support, stand by, and things like that.

If you don't want to go through the trouble of configuring pieces of hardware on your laptop, I highly recommend Ubuntu as a distro. Pretty much everything will work right after install and it has a lot more graphical interfaces for things such as updates and all.

Samsung, Lenovo (IBM), HP, Compaq, Acer and other major brands should run Linux nicely.

NOTE: DO NOT BUY AMD MACHINES WITH SIS GRAPHICS AS LINUX DOESN'T HAVE 3D SUPPORT FOR IT

xboxrulz