I really like Linux but i need help with my laptop

[monstereater123]

I love Linux but the fact is that I cannot get anything to work right on my laptop in any distro ive tried (even ones like Linuxmint that come pre-bundled with porprietary software). IF one thing works another doesn't. I have a nice fairly new laptop ... an acer aspire 4330 (model without the webcam) ... It has an hd audio chipset (being recognized fine), a realtek lan chipset (working fine too), an atheros based wifi chipset (not so much luck only found by distros pre-bundled with proprietary software and have not been able to successfully install in other distros) the model is an AR928X, it has an Intel GMA 4500m graphics chipset (works fine), an Intel Celeron 575 CPU, 2 Gigs of DDR2, 14.1 inch Crystal Brite LCD (brightness does not work with anything based off of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty), and a TSST Corp 8X DVD Burner (for some reason cannot get it to recognize DVDs from this drive even with the proper codecs). Everything seems to want to work in Linuxmint 7 or Easypeasy, but my Brightness does not work correctly and even though they have the proprietary codecs, DVDs won't play. Ubuntu 8.04 works with my LCD correctly but I have not been able to get wifi ( using MadWifi or NDIS wrapper) drivers installed and working. PCLinuxOS and Freespire fail to even boot (but they boot fine on my desktop). Can anybody please help me here? Don't make me go back to Windows ... it runs chunky on this laptop.

[ursusca]

Hello,

First of all you have to decide what distro are you going to use. Did you find distro for you?

[monstereater123]

Hello,

First of all you have to decide what distro are you going to use. Did you find distro for you?

Well I had Hardy Heron on my Desktop for a while ... I'd Feel more comfortable with it.

[ursusca]

Many hardware used in this laptop are not yet supported with some Linux operating systems including Ubuntu. If you really like Ubuntu my suggestion would be to wait till new 9.10 release. The final stable version will be released on October 29th, 2009. For a while you may try Mandriva, OpenSuse, Sabayon or Fedora but if you want study Linux and want try to setup everything yourself I advice you Gentoo. I am sorry I can't help you with Ubuntu. I don't use it. But if you have questions about Fedora and Gentoo you may ask me.

[reed9]

Howdy. It's likely that these problems are not insurmountable. However, in your other threads, you did not give us the information we asked for to help troubleshoot. (You were asked twice to follow the Wireless setup sticky and post the output, and did not do so.)

I sympathize that you're having trouble, but unless you give us the information we need, there's not much anyone here can do.

Also, when you ask questions, you should be as specific as possible about what the trouble is, exact error messages received, and what you have already tried.

With your LCD brightness issue...what is the issue? The brightness control keys don't work? The display dims or shuts off after a while and you want to prevent that?

FYI: Freespire is old and I think discontinued. I wouldn't use it and I wouldn't expect it to work well.

[jmadero]

I'd actually say go ahead and try the alpha 5 release of Karmic, it's not bad, a couple annoying bugs here or there but it's definitely functional. Also, for dvd's, what codecs are you installing? There are two sets that you should have, if you only have one then that could easily explain the problem there:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

that's for one, for the other follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

[monstereater123]

Ok, im downloading Open Suse my experience in the past is that it had better hardware support (was able to install on raid on my desktop) ... and Yes I did use mediubuntu to download libdvdcss2 and i had the libnav codecs (plus i had all gstreamer codecs and vlc) ... but i dont think anything under ubuntu 9.04 will correctly find my laptop hardware since it was just bought at the beginning of this year. The laptop brightness does not work: what i meant is that the shortcut keys work fine for linux but anything based on ubuntu 9.04 the brightness skips around randomly at times ... like in linux mint 7, the brightness would be dim and i would set it to max.... if i tried to change it after that then it would randomly skip (higher or lower) or lag behind and sometimes if the screen dimmed it would set the brightness really dark. freespire failed to boot (new version based on ubuntu 7.04 and kde) giving me the error no screens found ...

[computerophil]

I have a nice fairly new laptop ... an acer aspire 4330 (model without the webcam) ...

I don't have such a thing for myself so it is very hard to suggest because I lack the experience.
I just know that there exist a lot of special light distros made for netbooks also:
linux4one
ArchOne

I know aspire one and aspire 4330 are not the same but maybe there are the same parts in it => the same drivers

Good luck

[jmadero]

Beta for Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10) was released today, you might want to check it out.

[Mattchicago]

I do not know if you can find this program but its good on laptops

Ubuntu Ultimate Edition