Linux Mint 13/Xubuntu 12.04 Not Satisfactory

[aarn]

Just spent a frustrating day trying these two distros. I dual boot on a toshiba netbook with 1.66GHz processor, 2 Gb Ram, Win 7 starter installed, linux allocated 40Gb partition.

Both Win and Mint 11 boot in ~ 45 sec. Mint 13 was taking ~ 2 min to boot, even after switching off some startup clutter. XUb similar 2min + on first couple of reboots, then crashed... so reinstalled Mint 11, and it boots out-of-the-box in 45 sec.

Any advice? Is my machine too small for newer XuB/Mint distros?

I turn off a few startup apps (using BUM etc), have good 3BB wifi connection, but performance of newer distros somewhat disappointing... AA

[JSixpack]

Try something lighter? I put Lubuntu on my netbook, had no problems, fast boot time, works great. Bodhi might be another good possibility. Both have recent releases.

[Cornichon88]

You should give a try to Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php .

I've tested many many differentGNU/Linux distros In the VMware virtual machine on both my iMac and Macbook Pro and this one is my preffered. It's Debian, with a desktop à la Gnome 2 and use very few ressources. It come with a recent kernel (3.2.xx.x) , 4,6 Go for the basic install and need less than 200 Mio RAM in idle.

Even the iSight (integrated webcam) run like a charm with Skype. Most of the other tested distros failed at this point.

And last but not least, it's a rolling distrib. No need to re-install every year, just update and go.

Worst a try IMHO, it would be my choice for a netbook.

[smiling mantis]

Sounds more like some hardware is being misidentified and so the wrong driver is loaded. This can result in a startup delay in certain cases, as with a misidentified network card, then network services try to start but can't but will sit there for 30 seconds or more waiting for a response.

I do not believe there is any Linux distro out there that is too "heavy" for even 10-year-old hardware, let alone something the OP describes.

What does dmesg tell you?

[aarn]

Thx for advice folks. Looks like I'll be spending the next few days idling away...AA

[JSixpack]

You wanna go Debian, you might try this slick distro, new release just out: http://solusos.com.

Messed around w/ it briefly and was impressed. Very nicely done! It's relatively light, too.

Edited May 19, 2012 by JSixpack

[BugJackBaron]

Forget the spins. My feeling is that they are made by artsies and fan boys who do a lot

of work on the art and look and feel but little on debugging any new features - like Cinnamon - that they introduce.

Even Debian is just a hillbilly cousin of Ubuntu.

There are other great distros that work better and are almost as easy.

Try OpenSuse 12.1 and Mageia.

If you have some Unix background, another one to look at is Salix which ioffers a Mate desktop

running under Slackware. Not quite as many packages(some need special tinkering to work)

as the above but still a fast stable distro.

Edited May 25, 2012 by BugJackBaron

[bendejo]

I just spent three days going through a bunch of distributions.

I have three different wireless adapters, all of them are operable under Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows.

None of them worked out-of-the-box. One I knew had restricted drivers (Broadcom) I would need net access to activate, one has an iffy history with linux, but the last was tried and true. I don't have access to a cable connection, so it was lots of fun having to boot back into Windows to access the net. I finally went back to 10.04, it was good to see a functional linux again. Three days was enough. I want an OS, not a hobby.

The problem is with drivers for certain Ralink-based adapters (two of mine are). Of course, it trickles down into all the Ubuntu-based distributions. A lot of people out there are going to have to learn to compile drivers and fiddle with the kernel. Cries for help with this are filling the community/support boards. I'm sure it's going drive a lot of them to swear off the linux idea and run back to Windows. Way to go, Ubuntu!

Yeah, some day I may go back and try the kernel mods again, or maybe ndiswrappers, but I've had enough for now.

I tried the Debian-based distros but at installation they refuse to see my external hd.

Edited May 25, 2012 by bendejo

[BugJackBaron]

I also remember having problems with certain wifi adaptors.

Right now I kinda cheat as I have only a company notebook and as

we are not permitted to install linux , I run it in VMware.(a program that lets you run

another os inside windows)

The unfortunate truth is that as the hardware manafacturers are in bed with microsoft, and apple,

linux will always be playing catch up for wifi driver support. And

then there are the legal issues distros are often worried about even if drivers are available,

[bendejo]

...

The unfortunate truth is that as the hardware manafacturers are in bed with microsoft, and apple,

linux will always be playing catch up for wifi driver support.

...

I've begun to suspect that the Ubuntu release team are same guys who were the release engineers for MS Vista.

BTW, ndiswrappper in Ubuntu 12.04 and its offspring is broken, you need to download the version currently in development and compile it.

[volk666]

Obviously latest Ubuntu and derivatives like Mint are not playing nicely with OP's hardware, perhaps a driver needs to be installed manually, which is no fun, but since the machine eventually boots it's not the lack of drivers but something else.

Do they have any options to have a verbal boot in Ubuntu/Mint so that Aarn can see where the actual hiccup is? It could be anything, like S.M.A.R.T. picking up some hard disk red flags and running fdisk to check for errors.

[aarn]

Thx again fellow linux-nauts. I have settled on the mothership Ub 12.04 pangolin, will let the Mint teams fine tune their gear for a while.. also playing with puppy (lupu.528 .iso) on a stick, looks very wholesome. AA

[linuxuser010101]

I tried loading Mint 13 Maya on a new Toshiba with 16 gig of ram and could not make it work Toshiba basically told me so I returned the machine and bought a Dell for 2,000 B less with the same specs and ubuntu factory installed, I changed the OS to mint in about 20 minutes. If anyone needs help with Mint I would be happy to help, I have a lot of experience with it.