Re: [tlug] newbie notebook question

[Wayne <rondonko@example.com>]

On Tue, 2004-12-28 at 13:26 +0900, John Carthew wrote:
> I am a linux newbie. sorry to crash in on your mailing list!
> 
> Are you able to give me some advice please?
> 
> I would like to install linux on my notebook PC. I dont have any
> linux 
> experience, but am willing to learn! Can you advise of a linux distro 
> that is new-user friendly and notebook friendly? - for example, my 
> notebook's screen brightness control is software driven.
> 
> I have done some research online, reading your website and various 
> others about linux distros and migrating to linux, linux on notebook
> pc 
> and more. some of these websites advised contacting a nearby linux
> user 
> group for distro advice :-) ! I have also tried a few live CDs:
> mandrake 
> move, knoppix, suse 9.2.

Was the live CD able to find all your hardware? Especially sound,
video, LAN?

Being biased I always recommend Mandrake because of its ease of
install and use. It has great noob friendly config and update
tools. I'm running Mandrake 10.1 now and it works so well (Well
apart from a small USB SD card reader problem that should be
worked out soon) It also has a tool to resize your windows
partitions during install so you don't need any expensive
third party apps like Partition Magic. I believe Mandrake also
improved laptop compatibility in this release. Don't know about
brightness controls, the only laptop I've installed it on is an
ancient Thinkpad 390X.

Wayne