Putting Linux on a laptop

I recently have a acquired a laptop for free through my mothers job and i can do wahtever i want to it so what am i going to do? PUT 'NIX ON IT!

Ok so anyway it is a Dell Latitude D610 and was wondering if all the hardware on it would be compatible with a linux distro, not sure which distro to use yet. I am mostly going to be using this computer at work to be doing some Perl programming for network apps/scripts and stuff like that. What distro do you reccomend and how hard is it to install linux on a laptop. I have gotten a good base install of gentoo on my normal desktop but i didnt get much farther than that. Also for the networking at home i will be using my wired connection and at work i will be using their wireless so i dont know if that will be a problem. It has an intergrated intel network card that does wireless and wired or something.

So in summary what would be a good distro for perl programming on a Dell Latitude D610 laptop?

EDIT: Forgot to add the specs of the laptop. Its an Intel Centrino 1.6ghz, 512mb DDR2 ram, Mobile Intel® 915PM Express Chipset w/ ATI MOBILITYTM RADEON® X300 with 64MB DDR video memory, 14.1" XGA and SXGA+ active matrix (TFT) display

it should work fine

i got a dell inspiron 4000 at work, and everything works fine on it -- (using gentoo)

however with that laptop you might want to google for what kind of support that integrated wireless card has



beyond that, really any distro will work, its just more based on what your preferences are

Is installing gentoo on a laptop any diffrent from installing on a desktop? Like do i need a diffrent kernal and what archeture would i use? The x86 one or is there a special one for laptops?

Constantinos said:

Is installing gentoo on a laptop any diffrent from installing on a desktop? Like do i need a diffrent kernal and what archeture would i use? The x86 one or is there a special one for laptops?

Click to expand...

All you need to do is specify the correct CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS in your gentoo "make.conf". There is nothing different from a desktop install.

I would suggest you read the Gentoo 2005.1 Handbook, it has ALL the info you require.

thingi

What special CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS would i need? Also is a pentium M (centrino 1.6ghz) part of the x86 architeture?

Constantinos said:

What special CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS would i need? Also is a pentium M (centrino 1.6ghz) part of the x86 architeture?

Click to expand...

It should be something like:-

CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -pipe -mmmx -msse -msse2 -mfpmath=sse -O2"

The above isn't totally correct and there are a few more things that should be added but you would be better off asking in the Gentoo forums since it's been ages since I messed with gentoo (have been an Ubuntu happy camper for quite some time now).

thingi

Gentoo offers the maximum of configurability in different environments and a top-notch wiki/documentation base. The userbase is also particularly helpful when all hell breaks loose.

Features like SpeedStep, ACPI and power management are especially important in a lappy and unfortunately require quite a bit of tweaking - e.g. manual creation of runlevels for AC and Battery, LCD power-down when the lid is shut, recognising when it's docked. These all have to be configured manually on Linux most of the time.

One of the best places for linux compatibility on laptops:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Ken

I set up a Dell Latitude 600 for my dad with dual boot windows/gentoo. I later added Xandros as well. In general, it wasn't any different. There were a couple of issues.

1) Grub didn't work if I wanted to dual boot. If I only used gentoo, it was fine, but as soon as I went into windows, and then rebooted, it went into an endless reboot cycle. I installed lilo instead and no problems after that.

2) I had some issues getting it to work with both the internal monitor and external, and switching between, but this was fixable, just took some time.

The centrino is a 4 chip (99% sure of that). x86 or 686 will work fine.

No real differences between that and a p4 desktop in terms of cflags etc.