best distro

[mojoe176]

What distro would be best for a laptop, and wireless?

[mojoe176]

sorry for the unclear post,..
its an older laptop hp omnibook xe2 its got a 40 gig hdd, a p2 like 333mhz processor i believe 198mb ram. I have a network everywhere NWP11B wireless card i want to use with it(PCMCIA) from what i understnand it is a ACX100?

[bigtomrodney]

This question is asked many times every day. I advise having a look at this thred for some pointers.

[mojoe176]

most of the info in that post i have read already. I guess what im looking for is an out of the box up and go distro.

[bigtomrodney]

Ubuntu is the favourite beginner distro, but you are a little light on resources. I would try looking at Xubuntu, it's the same as Ubuntu but with Xfce which is a light desktop manager. You can get it at :-

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

[mojoe176]

Exactily what i was looking for thanks!
oh and how is Ubuntu at out of the box wireless detection?

[bigtomrodney]

As good as you'll get. They include some binary drivers which would otherwise be restricted. I recommend doing your install while plugged in by cable if possible. Make sure that you take all updates the first time round - I had troubles with a Broadcom WiFi card with 7.04 that were fixed with an update immediately.

[mojoe176]

sounds good, i just downloaded the ubuntu and xubuntu images. I will install Ubuntu tonight after work and see how that goes, if need be i will switch to xubuntu. I will post the results afterwords.

[bigtomrodney]

If network accessibility isn't a problem you can easily switch flavour of Ubuntu by installing the metapackage for another one -

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Ubuntu is Gnome based, Kubuntu is KDE based and as mentioned Xubuntu is based on Xfce. You can easily switch session between all three to see which you like best and what performs well for you.