- Lifebook C Series - Pentium M 1.8 Ghz, 512 MB RAM. 40 GB HDD
- Presario V2000 - AMD Turion 64, 1.9 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD
- Lifebook - Celeron 333 Ghz, 256 MB RAM, 4.2 GB HDD
- Desktop - Pentium 3, 128 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD
The actual installation process
Fujitsu C Series
The first machine I picked for the installation was the Fujitsu Lifebook C Series. The installation went through flawlessly thanks to the super Ubuntu installer. The partitions were detected and grub was installed. I booted into the machine and tried to start up desktop effects. The reply was "Unable to start desktop effects". On probing further is turned out that there are no video drivers for S3 video cards. Only the basci GNOME desktop runs on machines that use these cards. No other issues were encountered though.
The good - Smooth installation, Almost everything works
The bad - Desktop effects not working. Compiz-fusion cannot be used.
Compaq Presario V2000
The second machine - Presario V2000 from Comapq is a glossy screen wide screen laptop with an integrated ATI video card. I expected this machine to run Compiz-fusion with all possible effects but the results were mixed. I used the Ubuntu live CD to boot the machine. The machine starts and GNOME desktop effects is enabled by defaulted. Excited !
I hit the install to machine link and the installation happens. I rebooted the machine and hey - no GRUB entry. Weird. Anyways I decided to use KDE on this machine and used the Kubuntu live CD this time. Same result. System takes 20 odd minutes to install..and no GRUB entry. Dang !
I then tried OpenSUSE. I had used SUSE way back in 2000 and found it to be rock solid. So here goes. I boot with the live CD and it takes forever. Finally the KDE desktop appears and it is dreadfully slow. I decided to install the system and went through the steps. The partition manager that comes with OpenSUSE is not particularly friendly when it comes to partitioning the disk to your requirement. Maybe I am wrong but a some bright red text keeps appearing giving a "suggested" partition layout that never matches your (my) requirement. I was a little apprehensive of going further lest I blow my XP partition. That was it. No more openSUSE until I am confortable with its partition manager.
Next choice of distro was Mandriva. It did not go beyond some start up routine lines on the screen and got stuck at the network initialization routine. End of story.
Fedora was next. Installed nicely. KDE 4.1 was slow. Excrutiatingly slow. Had to get red of it. Debian was next on line. Worked like a charm during installation. No issues ..but hey they were bundling an old version of KDE (3.5) compared to Ubuntu / OpenSUSE / Fedora.
Thats when I came across DreamLinux. Seriously its packaging and ease of installation make it perfect for impatient people like me. I would rate it very close to Ubuntu. The desktop used is xfce and it blends beautifully with compiz-fusion for that extra jazz. Installed.Beautiful.
The good part
DreamLinux really good.
The bad parts
Fedora / OpenSUSE sluggish
kubuntu GRUB installation messes up sometimes ...replicated 3 times.
Lifebook Celeron and Desktop P3 Machine
The choice was between Damn Small Linux (DSL) and Puppy Linux(PL). The first try was with DSL on the laptop. The installation on the laptop was peaceful but it would not recognize my PCMCIA intersil wi-fi card. So PL was next. PL installed nicely but it is a pain to use the wi-fi configuration utility. Very confusing to create a wi-fi profile and use it. overall it is a fine light distro. I installed icewm but lost most of the application icons. Reverted to the original and no complaints as of now. The dektop too now runs PL. Its simple, fast and yea really fast.
The good
Puppy Linux is fast and furious.
The bad
Its window manager has a dated look. No complaints though.
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