Fast and Easy Linux

[suolakurkku]

Hello everyone!

I recently got a laptop from my brother since he bought a new one, and I thought I\d install some fast linux distribution on it, but i'm having trouble on choosing the right distribution for it. I have previous experience in Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, but I thought I'd try something diffrent this time.

I'm searching for a lightning fast distribution for fiddling around and trying new things with linux, that I wouldnt try on my other computer. I'm not looking for anything pretty, just something that's EXTREMELY light, and can be installed with ease, and preferrably without any fiddling in terminal. WLAN support would be necessary, as support for a modern browser.

I tried to install Archlinux but I couldnt get it configured properly, since I have no experience in consolestuff. After that, i tried DSL but I was unable to get WLAN to work, so I moved to Puppylinux, in which xwin or xorg or whatever wouldnt start. So now I'm stuck with xubuntu again. So please help me find a suitable distribution for my purpouse.

Also while we are at it, can you share some links or tips on fun things to do with linux.Messing around and trashing the system up, and other fun stuff :P Thanks for the advice in advance.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Maybe take a look at Zenwalk as a possibility. It's based on Slackware and is lightweight. You can check the link in my signature for a couple of quizzes that might help you to find what you are looking for.

[suolakurkku]

Welcome to the forums!

Maybe take a look at Zenwalk as a possibility. It's based on Slackware and is lightweight.

Thanks for the tip. I'll comment of the experience in a while...

[reed9]

Antix - Debian based
Unity - Mandriva based (Still in beta, used to be TinyMe)
Crunchbang - Ubuntu based
Vector Linux Light - Slackware based
Slitaz - independent

In general, the lighter weight things are, the less things are automated for you, which means occasionally dipping into the console. And a good part of making a distro lightweight is not just the window manager, but using lightweight apps. An example is my personal favorite music app, ncmpcpp, a command line MPD client. It uses around 2-3MB RAM for a library of thousands of songs, miniscule compared to Amarok or the like.

You don't have to be an expert (I'm certainly not!) but I recommend getting at least comfortable with the terminal. It can make your life easier and if you want light and fast, it's the way to go.

[oz]

When you get some spare time, I'd recommend trying to work with Arch again because it's really nice once you get a feel for it know your way around. Another lightweight not mentioned here yet is Slax.

[fwc]

I just asked this question a few threads down and went with AntiX. Its now running smoothly on my Acer TravelMate 2300. It only has 256MB RAM and the interface is quite nice. It runs IceWM and it feels just as graphical as GNOME which I'm running on Linux Mint on my desktop. Hope this helps.

[suolakurkku]

I've officially ran out of CD's, so I thought I'd switch my window manager to fluxbox. This gave a major performance improvement, but I'm still going to install something else when I get more CD's. A few things still bother me though, I customised my system to act as a "kiosk" (put nm-applet and firefox to .fluxbox/startup, and customized the menu's, so that you can't access any administrative programs from there. Put firefox to startup in fullscreen and tweaked the menu's a bit) I put my system to login automatically, but it needs authorization to use the network manager, the authorisation box is left under firefox as it starts, and I can't get WLAN to work if I don't authorise the thing. Does anyone here know how to authorize the manager without typing the password every time, so I don't have to minimize firefox and enter my password every time i boot this damn thing. Thank you in advance.

EDIT: Also, when I want to run something (by pressing Alt+F2) the input box get's under firefox, if Firefox maximized. Is there any way to customize fluxbox, to get it to show on top of Firefox, even if it's is maximised

I'm getting more familiar with the terminal now and I've noticed that it's actually quite fun whent you take some time to learn how it works. Today I'm going to try to get archlinux set up. Last time it fell on my inabilility to connect o my WPA2 secured wireless network.

[reed9]

As I recall, the networkmanager problem is due to the gnome-keyring. Basically, the gnome-keyring stores passwords, including the encryption key for your network, so each boot you have to unlock the keyring. I don't use networkmanager, and I'm not sure what the solution is - something to do with pam authentication and GDM as I recall. Or you can store your passwords unsafely and use gnome-keyring without a password. I believe deleting ~/.gnome2 should reset the keyring config.

Or if you switch to WICD, you shouldn't have this problem.

EDIT: Also, when I want to run something (by pressing Alt+F2) the input box get's under firefox, if Firefox maximized. Is there any way to customize fluxbox, to get it to show on top of Firefox, even if it's is maximised

You should be able to do this with fluxbox's window matching abilities.
Editing the apps file - Fluxbox-wiki

Post if you have trouble with Arch. We can hopefully get you through it.

[suolakurkku]

Well the trouble I have with Arch is that I cant get WLAN configured, thus I cant use pacman. Maybe Im supposed to edit some configuration files. I tried to follow the install guide on their website but I didnt understand it well enough.

I tried to to type iwconfig, but it didnt work, maybe i left some important package unistalled or something...

[reed9]

First things first. Are you installing from the core CD or the netinstall image?

If you cannot get your wireless running intially for the install, you should use the core image and install from the CD, then you can get things up and running. You want to make sure you include the wireless_tools package from the CD when you select your software, and depending on your wireless card, you may need to install extra firmware. As I recall, available on the Arch core CD is firmware for various intel cards and a couple others.

Check the wireless setup sticky on these forums if you need help getting info on your wireless card.

You said earlier you used WPA encryption. You will not be able to connect to a WPA encrypted network using just iwconfig and dhcpcd or dhclient. You'll need to use wpa_supplicant as well. It's not the most straightforward thing to use, so I recommend using arch's netcfg program to get your wireless running initially, and then installing something like wicd. (You still need wpa_supplicant installed though.)

Beginners' Guide - ArchWiki

Wireless Setup - ArchWiki