Which Linux distro for older laptop? +LINUX ISSUES

[Redddraggon]

Ideally a free, legit download.

Just needs to do:
-word processing
-xvid/avi/etc player
-music player
-internet browsing
-needs to be easy to use as I'm a materials scientist rather than computer scientist

I did have ubuntu on it before Xmas but it kept "crashing" and messing up so I reinstalled XP back onto it.

Any recommendations?

[JazzyJay]

Ideally a free, legit download.

Just needs to do:
-word processing
-xvid/avi/etc player
-music player
-internet browsing
-needs to be easy to use as I'm a materials scientist rather than computer scientist

I did have ubuntu on it before Xmas but it kept "crashing" and messing up so I reinstalled XP back onto it.

Any recommendations?

If you had Ubuntu you can also try "Kubuntu" which uses KDE instead of Gnome if that desktop env. was the root of your problems.
Then I would suggest Mint (based on Ubuntu), Debian, openSuse or Fedora.

I am sure pretty much all of them come with all of those things pre-installed, if not, it's usually a matter of two/three clicks.

On the Ubuntu note, when did it crash, what were you doing at the time it happened? I run Ubuntu on three different computers (one of them being a laptop) and never had Ubuntu crashing on me (I mean the OS, not occasional program freeze up etc.)

JJ

[Redddraggon]

I've given Ubuntu 9.04 a shot. 24hours in and it seems to be going well.

Took me ages to sort it all out, and all the "standard" font sizes were way too big for me. But I got there in the end and it all looks good......

However I'm struggling to get streaming on various sites working - Firefox on Vista seems to be able to do it, but I can't get Firefox on linux to do it.

e.g. http://www.justin.tv/ferrari_dragon2

I'm just getting "Flash Error" when I should be getting a video....... I really need streaming for Giro D'Italia

[Redddraggon]

Alas I already sorted it play videos in youtube, they just don't want to work in justin.tv

[JazzyJay]

Alas I already sorted it play videos in youtube, they just don't want to work in justin.tv

I am inclined to say that it's their website that's buggy. Also, Flash is unstable outside of Windows platform, mind you it's unstable on it as well

If you haven't installed it yet, you should install MS fonts:
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
sudo fc-cache -fv

JJ

[Redddraggon]

Alas I already sorted it play videos in youtube, they just don't want to work in justin.tv

I am inclined to say that it's their website that's buggy. Also, Flash is unstable outside of Windows platform, mind you it's unstable on it as well

If you haven't installed it yet, you should install MS fonts:
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
sudo fc-cache -fv

JJ

Thanks JAzzy, jsut did that.

A few more issues have arised though:

1. whenever I use Transmission it seems to bring the system to a crawl - it's definitely Transmission as without it the system is fine - would another App work better?

EDIT: OK, I think I sorted this by using KTorrent instead

2. MS Silverlight? - After failing to get justin.tv working with Flash, I found another source for the Giro:

http://www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raisport/direttaGiro.html

But that requires Silverlight........ I have moonlight installed but it's not doing it's job - I think I need the equivalent to Silverlight 2


EDIT:Still can't sort this issue though

Any ideas?

[Stueh]

bit of info about moonlight

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/ ... lease.aspx

might be worth reporting to the moonlight team and keeping an eye on Scott Guthries blog for future updates to Moonlight. Should be an update soon as Siverlight 3 is in its beta already and can be downloaded

Hth.

[JazzyJay]

Re: Transmission - no idea what can be causing that, it works fine for me on 2 different PCs. Can you run "top" in from the terminal/command line and see if it the CPU goes to 100% for transmission.

Re: Silverlight - I can imagine there are problems with it as it's M$ invention. I generally boycott these kind of plugins as they're not open source (well, Flash is sort of) and hence broken on other platforms than those supported by the manufacturer

JJ

[Stueh]

Re: Silverlight - I can imagine there are problems with it as it's M$ invention. I generally boycott these kind of plugins as they're not open source (well, Flash is sort of) and hence broken on other platforms than those supported by the manufacturer

JJ

The problem with moonlight is, the developers have to basically re-write the code to do exactly the same thing. Dunno what the compliers are like on linux, but if they are the same as windows then they are pretty mad at telling you what the error is.

Ill keep you guys updated with the news about it if you want?

[Redddraggon]

Apart from the Silverlight issue, linux seems to be going fine, apart from the faff to install programs that you can't get from the Synaptic Package Manager.

[groinshot]

-sudo getapp "XXXXX"
being hard?
I tried compilinig my own stuff..... once.....
i went back to windows.

[Redddraggon]

-sudo getapp "XXXXX"
being hard?

Yeh I know that bit, I downloaded the Cisco VPN and it always started installing, but kept failing. Used the Synaptic Package Manager in the end and found another program.

[JazzyJay]

-sudo getapp "XXXXX"
being hard?

Yeh I know that bit, I downloaded the Cisco VNC and it always started installing, but kept failing. Used the Synaptic Package Manager in the end and found another program.

VNC viewer or server? Ubuntu comes with vinagre (viewer) and vino (server).

Viewer in Applications -> Internet
Server settings in System -> Preferences -> Remote desktop

JJ

[Redddraggon]

Oops a typo - I meant VPN rather than VNC


This was what I was trying to install:
http://www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/ ... ux/config/