Re: easy laptop install?

[Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

(I'm replying to my own post in order to include here Nigel's off-list
reply:)

On Sunday, 19 February 2006 at 13:54:17 +0200, Nigel Ridley wrote:
> Richard Lyons wrote:
[...]
> >  So the question is this:
> >
> >Are there distros that install on laptops with as much success as
> >standard net-install does on a desktop?  I know that some live cd's
> >overcome hardware issues better than the normal install.  I
> >originally
> >arrived at debian via knoppix3.1, for example.  I keep seeing ubuntu
> >mentioned here.  I have reached the point when I would settle for a
> >derived system that worked even against my preference to keep all
> >machines on debian.
> >
> >Alternatively/additionally, should I backtrack to a 2.4 kernel?  udev
> >seems to require a huge amount of tailoring of things that used to
> >happen automatically, 
[...]
> 
> I personally use Kubuntu (Ubuntu but with KDE) on all our computers
> here 
> at home - 4 desktops and a Toshiba laptop. Never had to tweak anything 
> to work.
> The laptop does everything it's meant to do (except the multimedia 
> buttons - don't use them so never bothered trying, or seeing if they 
> work) even the scrolling buttons on the 'mouse' and hibernate - when I 
> close the lid.
> 
> Kubuntu do have a live cd of their latest stable release:
> http://kubuntu.org/special-cds.php (for some reason it's in German but 
> you could still use it to see how your hardware works).

I am going to give Ubuntu a try (or Kubuntu -- either way, I'll be using
a lighter WM and ignoring the massive one).  If the live cd works, I'll
either crib its config files and find time to compile a kernel that
matches, or more likely just install it.

Thanks Nigel.

-- 
richard