What Distro Should I Use (Specific)

[hydnwtkns]

I have an Emachines T2885. It has a Pentium Centrino processor. I have an aftermarket HP Motherboard with 768 mb of RAM. I have a 120gb hard drive. I also have an Nvidia Graphics card. It is an Nvidia Geforce4 MX. I have tried installing Ubuntu, Mandriva, Linux Mint, and Opensuse. I am currently running opensuse but am not pleased with it. I have only been using linux for a couple weeks. I need a distrobution that will detect and allow me to use my nvidia card. Ubuntu and Opensuse made me use onboard video. I also need it to have sound. Basically I need a newbie linux with great Hardware and sound configuration. I need it to be easy, but not easy as where i will not learn anything. Sorry if this seems confusing. I would also hope that the linux looks nice, and has desktop effects. I do not care whether it is Gnome or KDE as i dont yet have a preference. I need a distro with a great community as to help me with bugs and problems. It also needs to be able to install lots of software easily.

BTW: Ubuntu and Linux Mint installer and boot would freeze when i would try to use PCI graphics card.

Thanks so much!

[hydnwtkns]

Someone please post!

[icedtea]

I have an Emachines T2885. It has a Pentium Centrino processor. I have an aftermarket HP Motherboard with 768 mb of RAM. I have a 120gb hard drive. I also have an Nvidia Graphics card. It is an Nvidia Geforce4 MX. I have tried installing Ubuntu, Mandriva, Linux Mint, and Opensuse. I am currently running opensuse but am not pleased with it. I have only been using linux for a couple weeks. I need a distrobution that will detect and allow me to use my nvidia card. Ubuntu and Opensuse made me use onboard video. I also need it to have sound. Basically I need a newbie linux with great Hardware and sound configuration. I need it to be easy, but not easy as where i will not learn anything. Sorry if this seems confusing. I would also hope that the linux looks nice, and has desktop effects. I do not care whether it is Gnome or KDE as i dont yet have a preference. I need a distro with a great community as to help me with bugs and problems. It also needs to be able to install lots of software easily.

BTW: Ubuntu and Linux Mint installer and boot would freeze when i would try to use PCI graphics card.

Thanks so much!

try using slackware. i have used my nvidia card there. i just downloaded the driver
since you have a big HD try using different distros.

[hydnwtkns]

try using slackware. i have used my nvidia card there. i just downloaded the driver
since you have a big HD try using different distros.

Thank you for posting, however Slackware doesn't look very newbie friendly.

[racepres]

Actually I am one of those "newbie's" and the slax live cd gives me a good impression of slackware $0.02.. RP

[saivin]

hydnwtkns,
My suggestion to you is PCLinuxOS. I have not used it but heard that it has excellent hardware detection. Though its based on Mandriva it has more stability, polish and ease of use than it (May be comparable to Mint and Ubuntu). You may try Debian too. Its at mid-range on newbie scale.

Well, the beauty of linux is that we can always tweak our system to have every feature we desire. The caveat is 'tweaking'. All of the distros you have mentioned can be tweaked (if they don't provide the feature already) to give you the kind of system you desire. May be thats not a suggestion you are looking forward I guess

[hydnwtkns]

hydnwtkns,
My suggestion to you is PCLinuxOS. I have not used it but heard that it has excellent hardware detection. Though its based on Mandriva it has more stability, polish and ease of use than it (May be comparable to Mint and Ubuntu). You may try Debian too. Its at mid-range on newbie scale.

Well, the beauty of linux is that we can always tweak our system to have every feature we desire. The caveat is 'tweaking'. All of the distros you have mentioned can be tweaked (if they don't provide the feature already) to give you the kind of system you desire. May be thats not a suggestion you are looking forward I guess

Thanks So Much! I will try Slackware, Debian, and PCLinuxOS on my computer.

[reed9]

Nvidia has linux drivers, but they are proprietary and almost no distro will include them out of the box. But it's easy to install: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bi...erHowto/Nvidia

You may need to boot up using the vesa driver initially, and then install the nvidia driver.