SuSE is often touted as being good for laptops. I am on the thinkpad linux mailing list and it seems quite popular.
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:56:49 +1200 Andrew Errington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 22:27, you wrote: > > Are you sure that you've got the patience for setting up Debian on a > > laptop? Especially for someone else. There's better distros for > > laptops and I speak from experience given that Debian is what I run on > > my laptop. If I wasn't such a damn geek I'd never have got it working > > properly. > > I beg to differ. Stock Debian 3.0 (stable) worked fine on my ThinkPad > 600E. A minor effort to get sound going, but pretty much everything worked > 'out of the box'. After that though there are opportunities for endless > tweaking. For a quick start, Knoppix runs okay, and I also installed Mepis > for a short time (thanks Jason!) before dropping back to Debian stable. > > I would be interested in recommendations for better laptop distros, but > only because Debian stable is a bit old now. Having said that, KMail and > Konqueror is all that is needed, and yes, I have infinite patience. > > > I understand the logic though... slow laptop so you might as well build > > a tailor made system. But as soon as you install stable with gnome I > > think you'll still find it doggedly slow. > > Again, it depends. The ThinkPad 600E is has a 300MHz processor or > thereabouts, and 128Mb RAM. In my opinion this is adequate (and the > desktop I use is KDE), although to be honest I most often use it as a VNC > terminal to my other machine. > > > Can anyone suggest a better distro for an old laptop? > > Yes, please. > > > Also, kppp is a bitch to configure and use as a normal user and it was > > enough to drive me away from KDE altogether. I use pon and poff with > > the modemlights applet under gnome. Very tidy. > > I found kppp was easy to configure. Here's what you have to do: > > 1) Discover that kppp runs only as root > 2) Futz around with XAUTHORITY so you can see it on your humble user screen > 3) Make it go, by detecting the modem and then entering your ISP details > 4) Figure out why it won't authenticate and remove "auth" from > /etc/ppp/options > 5) Realise that running as root is not a good idea for the intended user, > so set up sudo and give permission only for kppp > > Took less than 20 mins from thinking "Well, how hard can it be?" to making > it happen. kppp minimises on connect, so you get blinkenlights on the > panel in KDE. > > Of course, after this I got a bit worried because the laptop was directly > connected to the internet and I had no idea how to protect it properly, > hence my question. I also think that dial-on-demand is better, since the > owner can just fire up Konq, or hit "Download mail" and the dialer will > start. This also allows unattended operation, so cron can upload stuff to > an ftp site or other such marvels. > > Andy > > > > > On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 10:08, Andrew Errington wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > > > I am proposing to set up a Debian based laptop for a friend. All they > > > need is email and web from a dial-up ISP, so a fairly low-spec PC with > > > KDE from Debian stable is adequate. > > > > > > I have set up kppp on my laptop, which is similar to one I will get. > > > To make it work I had to install 'sudo', so that an ordinary user can > > > run kppp as root, and I had to remove 'auth' from /etc/ppp/options > > > > > > Anyway, that works fine, and kppp will dial up when I press a button, > > > and disconnect when I press another button. I think I would prefer > > > dial-on-demand though, so I am going to try the instructions here: > > > > > > http://www.davidpashley.com/tutorials/wvdial-pppd-dod.html > > > > > > At home I am on cable, and I have a router box that basically acts as > > > my firewall. I have no 'protection' on any of the machines on my home > > > network, and I rely on the router for this. > > > > > > What should I do to get the appropriate level of protection when I > > > connect directly to the internet with a modem? My friend will not need > > > to run any servers (e.g. ftp or web), but I would like them to have an > > > ssh server so I can get in and administer the box. > > > > > > Thanks for any advice, > > > > > > Andy -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
