The Linux Wanderer
I'm not going to elaborate on some of the issues I've recently had with Ubuntu, because I don't want to ward anyone off Linux (and it's proabbly because of the nutty six-year old laptop).
I was thinking of giving Novell's Suse a go next. Have you tried that one?
I haven't, and I was close to giving it a go this time around. But I wanted to try a non-KDE/Gnome distro, and honestly I've heard bad things since Novell took over openSUSE (though I wouldn't put a great deal of weight behind that since my knowledge is out of date, vague, and inevitably limited).
Any established distribution is going to be roughly equivalent for most, depending far more on the choice of desktop environment (Gnome/KDE/Xfce/Fluxbox/OpenBox/JVM/etc.).
An old laptop is difficult, because the more robust the distribution, the higher the system requirements, yet the more slimmed down the higher likelihood you're going to have problems with wireless.
What I'd suggest is try out a few different live CDs to see
1. What gets wireless to work
2. What feels right
A nutty OS for a nutty laptop would be Puppy Linux
Any established distribution is going to be roughly equivalent for most, depending far more on the choice of desktop environment (Gnome/KDE/Xfce/Fluxbox/OpenBox/JVM/etc.).
An old laptop is difficult, because the more robust the distribution, the higher the system requirements, yet the more slimmed down the higher likelihood you're going to have problems with wireless.
What I'd suggest is try out a few different live CDs to see
1. What gets wireless to work
2. What feels right
A nutty OS for a nutty laptop would be Puppy Linux
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobileI went to 9.10 and damn it looked nice, but my mouse stopped working, as did my wi-fi, ethernet and sound card. As you said, the higher the version, the less likely my old laptop will like it.
I went and installed 7.10 again, but it was still gimped. I think it's time for a new laptop. I've been using the missus computer and desktop for a while now (thus the reduction in typos).
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Despite even inquiring on Superuser, the inexplicable issue of sudden reversions in files never did cease, despite multiple harddrives, filesystem checks, startup variations, etc. Concluding with a sudden and inexplicable loss of microphone functionality, it was time to call it quits.
So I have since given Xubuntu a go with the ext4 filesystem (in lieu of reiserFS which I had been using previously). While no doubt attributed by just my own greater experience, this has been the smoothest transition yet. Everything has just worked, and very quickly to boot.
Xubuntu is based on the Xfce desktop environment, which is meant to be a lightweight alternative to Gnome and KDE. It's not so trimmed down as some others, though, and works as something of a midrange solution. It provides simple modularity and customization.
Unlike Gnome, the task manager on the panel works vertically, and compared to KDE I've found it particularly snappy and responsive. While previously it would have felt like a step back, it manages to now be fully functional, though perhaps missing a little flair.
Here's hoping this one can stand the test of time.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile