Linux OS for Laptop

[Doc41]

Hey guys, a friend of mine wanted to check out linux to do some coding on but honestly we both never worked on linux before...
he has a spare dell latitude D530, i along with another friend of his tried ubuntu and debian but couldn't get them to download any kind of apps as it always errors out.

so if anybody is familiar with this certain laptop or similar hardware recommend another distro and maybe show me how to get it to work properly

 

[blobster21]

Linux MINT could be a solution to your equation

 

[Frick]

+1 for Mint with Cinnamon.

 

[Zafar]

Go for linux mint. Or try lubuntu.

 

[insane 360]

most ubuntu based systems don't do well with the broadcom wifi chip thats in the d530. how do i know, i have one...

fedora 21 works brillantly well. give it a go, but at the least you can just run several on usb sticks and live boot them.

 

[Doc41]

Thanks for the reply's , Mint and fedora it is...
downloading and will see how it goes later

 

[Doc41]

installed linux mint (17.1 cinnamon) but can't/don't know how to get wireless working (and wireless light not working but bluetooth light is)
in the mean time i'm going to try fedora....

 

[pigulici]

I use Mageia 3 on my lenovo y510p...

 

[insane 360]

installed linux mint (17.1 cinnamon) but can't/don't know how to get wireless working (and wireless light not working but bluetooth light is)
in the mean time i'm going to try fedora....

Ubuntu/mint you have to follow this link
http://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers

sometimes its more difficult if the ethernet is also broadcom then sometimes you have to download the drivers onto a usb drive and then execute those drivers on your ubuntu/mint

so far, fedora or arch based distro's seem to have no issues with these wireless cards.

 

[Frick]

Everytime I'm trying Linux on laptops it's always something that doesn't work as it should. Sleep/hibernation, lid functions, touchpad gestures, Fn-keys... Some distros fare better than others but I'm yet to come across something that does everything. I had a laptop with a wlan card that was known to be a bitch to setup in linux, but in slitaz it worked flawlessly out of the box.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Use ANY of them really... you just have to know your hardware, just like in windows... I am a lame guy... and I despise Ubuntu with Unity and I like actually like KDE... screw me... MINT, Kubuntu whatever Arch or whatever core... you can put what you want, I even like Fedora much... The differences are minimal, YUM or APT, AUR... and... slight details... if you know google then who cares... If you put on something heavy, just spit a line in CLI and the shell is lighter like LXDE... The thing with specific like functions a matter poking around... you have to try each distro. It ain't a pain, they all install fast.

Unless you take Gentoo path and compile everything on your specific hardware... then I will give you grade balzz of steel...

PS.

WIFI is the geeky part OK. You will have to black list most drivers as Linus Torwalds didn't show fukc you the Realtek, Broadcom, Intel and Atheros (yes I had issues with them with stock Linux kernel drivers, mostly with errata buggy hardware that needs patches, like even my Intel 82579V that has a patch on Win, but not on Linux, for example any steam download via socks will stall in few seconds). Just compile the ones provided in manufacturer sites, it is easy.

 

[Aquinus]

i along with another friend of his tried ubuntu and debian but couldn't get them to download any kind of apps as it always errors out.

Explain that because if you're trying to run Windows applications, it won't work at all without something like WINE. I always recommend Ubuntu because it's easy to use and has huge repos of deb packages. So I still think Ubuntu is a good idea and elaboration on the bold part of the quote would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Doc41]

Explain that because if you're trying to run Windows applications, it won't work at all without something like WINE. I always recommend Ubuntu because it's easy to use and has huge repos of deb packages. So I still think Ubuntu is a good idea and elaboration on the bold part of the quote would be greatly appreciated.

i don't recall much but i think we tried downloading some apps from its own store but it either doesn't download or says something missing which again won't download for some reason, i'm not familiar with linux so i have no idea what i was doing

 

[Aquinus]

i don't recall much but i think we tried downloading some apps from its own store but it either doesn't download or says something missing which again won't download for some reason, i'm not familiar with linux so i have no idea what i was doing

If it doesn't download or "sudo apt-get update" doesn't work, then you probably don't even have an internet connection. Lets take this one step at a time.

 

[Doc41]

@Aquinus thing is last time it did have a working internet connection, browser was working fine and all.....
update:
i sideloaded ubuntu again and this time it seems to work properly and i can download stuff from the store, plus its updating to 15.04 now..... so again i'll try it out and see how it goes

 

[Aquinus]

thing is last time it did have a working internet connection, browser was working fine and all.....

If you didn't have internet when you installed Ubuntu, it won't include internet apt repositories, just the installation media that you used. At least that's how it worked the last time I installed Ubuntu on a box without internet, but that was some time ago.

 

[1.61803398875]

I would recommend Arch Linux, to be quite honest with you. Contrary to popular belief it is not that lofty of a goal for a beginner, especially considering the highly-detailed Arch Wiki and a plethora of YouTube videos dedicated to helping people install Arch. It is, quite frankly, the best Linux distro that I have ever used. Its OS uses a rolling release system, it has a lovely package manager as well as user repositories, does not install a bunch of unnecessary files... etc. Essentially you are choosing what you want to be on the system instead of allowing the installer to choose for you.

 

[hellrazor]

You have to download firmware-brcm80211 or something around there on Debian to get your wireless working properly - and, yes, that means getting a wired connection.

 

[Aquinus]

You have to download firmware-brcm80211 or something around there on Debian to get your wireless working properly - and, yes, that means getting a wired connection.

#/bin/bash
# - Binary firmware for Broadcom 802.11 wireless cards
sudo apt-get install firmware-brcm80211

 

[CjStaal]

Personally I use Arch with Cinnamon, although the install is a bit complicated for a first-timer. I suggest going with Linux Mint. I do not know if it's possible to use it with some broadcom chips. Although, if you figure out how to install AUR packages on Mint, there is a pacakge, "broadcom-wl" that is community made, and supports almost all broadcom chips!

Another way to deal with this is to just get a AWUS036NH. It's an ALFA usb wireless adapter that's pretty good!

 

[Nordic]

Everyone always recommends mint, but I think ubuntu mate is a better choice. It is just as easy as linux mint but a little more up to date.

 

[CjStaal]

Everyone always recommends mint, but I think ubuntu mate is a better choice. It is just as easy as linux mint but a little more up to date.

I believe Mint is actually the preferred and recommended one for new users now. I think they're head to head in terms of being up to date, I actually think Mint is a bit faster with the updates.

 

[Solaris17]

Just nice pure debian. Something about it makes me feel like a 6 digit salary worker in a really expensive DC.

 

[Misaki]

Linux Mint Debian Edition with MATE
http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

 

[Nordic]

The reason people recommend mint is because it is easy to use. Most of that "ease of use" comes from having a desktop interface similar to windows. Mate also has a similar desktop interface, that is why there is a linux mint mate.

So on ease of use, linux mint and ubuntu mate are a wash. They are equal.

So which one would you choose? Ubuntu mate because it has a more up to date kernel and more up to date libraries. Why does that even matter? As soon as your friend gets familiar with linux he will start to play with things. Having a more up to date system from the start will prevent a lot of extra work.

This is a laptop for coding right? Well using mint would be like working with python 2.4. Ubuntu mate would be like using python 3.1.
Yes there is python 3.4, but ubuntu mate does not even use the latest kernel. It is just more up to date and equally beginner friendly as linux mint.