Linux on teh Acer 5220?

[porkop]

Hi All,

Has anyone run any flavor of linux on the freebie laptops (Acer extensia 5220) that a lot of us obtained some years ago?

Be interested in your findings, success, etc.

Thanks for reply.

porkop

[Guiseppe]

is just one of many hits

[autotuner]

I'd say just try one of the "live" cd/dvd for the various distros (where you just boot and run from the CD) to get a feel for what would be the go..

[Guiseppe]

What do you intend to use the machine for? Do you want all the bloatware of say Ubuntu or prefer something smaller. I am using Puppy 3.01 which is 'quite' old now but is only a 100Meg iso. Download and burn to CD - easy.

Second autotuner's comment: provided the Acer will boot from CD, get some live CDs and try out as many as you can. If you don't like them then the machine is exactly as it was before you started.

[porkop]

It's just that I already have laptops with vista and xp so for a change I thought Linux might be fun. I normally use one of fedora distros.

My main concern was functionality of all the devices.

From my experience, many years playing with Linux (since about 1994), Linux distress have always lacked one thing that would make me move over 100%, be it printing, webcam, application I use with windows thatnis not available with Linux, which always drove me back to windows.

But as the 5220 basically sits around and does nothing, might be time for a revisit?

Regards

[Guiseppe]

...

My main concern was functionality of all the devices.

From my experience ... have always lacked one thing that would make me move over 100%, be it printing, webcam, application I use with windows thatnis not available with Linux, which always drove me back to windows.

Regards

That is the reason to try out LiveCDs. Not only will you know if your hardware works but also what apps come with the distro.

I must admit I still have 98$E on a second hd for the few times I need something Puppy will not do. I do not want to dual boot but, in your case, would that be an option?

[autotuner]

You can usually get things working under Linux, albeit in some case not exactly as you would expect.
The livecd should give you an idea of what is close.
When you load the "proper" version make sure you choose custom install and remove the crap you don't want (Fedora is particularly bad for installing a whole heap of useless crap by default) and make sure to add the development libraries. That way you can always compile drivers etc. from source.


Once you get it going make an image via Clonezilla or similar, because if you have a modified kernel or custom stuff you can bet an update will screw it at some stage.

Sure its not as easy as Windows...but what the heck..

Oh and agree with Guiseppe on Puppy, its great for older / low end hardware.

[porkchops]

I get a little upset when folks want to install Linux on older hardware that modern windows versions would totally choke/laugh at!

Even though it works, its this mentality (Linux as a secondary OS) that is possibly holding it back from mainstream use. Porkop, put windows flavour on this laptop and wipe away your main PC with a variant of Linux You won't regret it - as this household has all but one weened off the evil empire.

Recent event at work, had the IT Officer make "threats" of changing my PC, and this Thursday when I got to work computer was on (usually off) and had signs of a huge makeover overnight, based on the screen saver! Was even more exciting to find Knoppix desktop greeting me behind this - and was impressed with the amount of apps this distro loads! Even had a quick play with Super Tux (sons favourite game). Unfortunately had to exit the live install and log onto the corporate m$ network, which I was annoyed, as lost great OS and had to do work