Linux Install Advice

[fenrix]

In an attempt to stay more active here (yes I'll be posting more :D) I just recently installed Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire One netbook. But it's been aaaaaaaages since I did a Linux install (Probably almost 4 years now O.o) I'm looking for advice on what I can do to improve the install, packages I should be adding to it as well, or suggestions on

Comments

[kianir]

[fenrix]

Ahh, awesome, will leave the kernel in place then. And I don't think I can control whether it's on or off sadly, but it's already enabled. I think some of the hardware in the netbook has issues with the Linux drivers, at times it'll cause the mouse to start jerking across the screen, I'll have to completely shut it down at that point to get it to stop because it'll do it in windows too. If I just run windows, it's fine.

[silveradept]

The searching function in Synaptic/Adept became dumber as the versions went up, in my opinion, but there's the Ubuntu Guidem walkthroughs and HOWTOs of various sorts that will improve and add functionality to a stock install, including multimedia codecs and other packages. Brushing up your Google-fu will also help in discovering packages that will help you. There's also some tools available that will supposedly build debian-capable packages from other distributions' packages, if you find a totally sweet item but it's only available in RPMs.

I will say, from my experience, compiling from source can be a PITA with Ubuntu.

[fenrix]

Ahh, okay. What distro would you suggest then? I'm still undecided on one. Last distro I used often was Slackware, but since I've been out of the loop for the past few years, I'm not familiar with what is the best one to use anymore. I've had people suggest Fedora, but not familiar with it. I've heard Debian is good too.

[silveradept]

I use Ubuntu as a desktop environment, and so I really do like it, assuming that you can get the problems with it fixed. Ubuntu and Debian use the same package management system, although the Debian system doesn't do version upgrades nearly as fast as Ubuntu does (they just released lenny after several years on Sarge.) Might be easier to compile from source on a straight Debian install.

The other possibility I've seen used well is Gentoo, but it's the kind of distribution that assumes, to some degree, that you know what you're doing when you install and use it. It, however, has the advantage of supposedly downloading and compiling everything from source into it's own packages, so you should get everything optimized and customized for your machine.