Your favourite (non Ubuntu) distro?

Spider

Spider

Spider

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Thinking of giving Linux another stab. Had a lovely setup with Ubuntu 7.04 with (what was) beryl working like a charm and my WPA Wifi working fantastically. now though I made the mistake of upgrading to the PoS that is 7.10 and nothing works - the ATI drivers are awful, my WIFI wont connect and i just cannot be arsed to commit the hours needed to revert back to 7.04 and get everything working again (manually configuring the wifi drivers, wpa_supplicant, the ati drivers etc. etc.).

So I think i'll try something new. Something flashy, pretty and very snazzy I want......Cany anyone suggest something?

Thanking-you!!!
 
brummie said:
7.10 is way better than 7.04 you must have done something wrong
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Must I? Thanks for that Insight! :rolleyes:
I did an upgrade which was a total farce and broke EVERYTHING. So I did a clean install of the OS and that too is a shambles. I've used about 4 different versions of ubuntu in the past (including the variations like kubuntu, xubuntu etc) and always had relative success with it. IMO 7.10 is poor and reading the ubuntu forums i'm not the only one who has had to revert back to 7.04 due to incompatibilities intriduced in the OS
 
Well at least let us know what the problems were. Just saying it is crap helps no one, especially people who are thinking about using it.
What have you tried to address your problems?
 
I'm currently using 8.4 (Hardy alpha6), and I have to say, it's running like a dream on two different machines, one a laptop. Much, much nicer than 7.10..

Maybe give Hardy a go?

Mint Linux was okay when I tried it, and PCLOS was good, but it's a fair bit old now, and I've moved away from KDE..
 
To be fair to the OP when I dist upgraded my daughters machine from Feisty to Gutsy it was disastrous. Exactly the problems the OP stated with the ati drivers etc.

I ended up removing all traces of the linux partitions... rebooting and reinstalling from a Gutsy live CD.

Job sorted..... However, I just dist upraded my cousins in the same fashion and its hunky dory ... except for the "dropping the WEP key" bit I posted about in another topic.
 
I'm an Xubuntu convert, but seeing as though you're looking for other distros to try, have you checked out Sabayon? It's a great little distro that has a lot going for it. I originally started using it cause it's Gentoo-based without all the hassle of building a Gentoo system from scratch, so to speak.

However, if you're looking for something that just works without any involvement on your part, then it may not be for you, as it's slightly rough around the edges in places (I remember having a few issues with my USB keyboard and mouse which took a bit of fixing, but I got there in the end).
 
brummie said:
Well at least let us know what the problems were. Just saying it is crap helps no one, especially people who are thinking about using it.
What have you tried to address your problems?
Click to expand...

Where to start... My Wireless no longer works (the card is detected but it refuses to connect to my WPA network), my ATI graphics card no longer works correctly (will not correctly let me set the resolution, nor does it like any of the supplied drivers other than the not so lovely VESA) the 3D effects are consequently no longer working, many of the in built tools and apps (such as the network manager, synaptic, system monitor and about 4 or 5 others) just continually hang and then have to be forced closed.

I know Ubuntu isn't the greatest on a Laptop, but the OS was running sweetly on 7.04 (its a Dell Inspiron 6400). Wish I'd never bothered to upgrade now as its been a joke ever since.

Trying ANOTHER clean install now....
 
uvmain said:
I'm currently using 8.4 (Hardy alpha6), and I have to say, it's running like a dream on two different machines, one a laptop. Much, much nicer than 7.10..

Maybe give Hardy a go?

Mint Linux was okay when I tried it, and PCLOS was good, but it's a fair bit old now, and I've moved away from KDE..
Click to expand...

Thanks, its downloading now....Whats the main 'improvements'?
 
Spider said:
Thanks, its downloading now....Whats the main 'improvements'?
Click to expand...

Well, even though it prompted for the use of unauth'd ATI drivers, it still booted straight into my native 1680*1050 before I installed them, which I was amazed at :D

My Alsa was config'd to 5.1 straight away, no fiddling needed..

Just loads of neat OOB features that make it simple and.. Mac-ish..
 
uvmain said:
Well, even though it prompted for the use of unauth'd ATI drivers, it still booted straight into my native 1680*1050 before I installed them, which I was amazed at :D

My Alsa was config'd to 5.1 straight away, no fiddling needed..

Just loads of neat OOB features that make it simple and.. Mac-ish..
Click to expand...

Mint does seem nice (I tried it, see my "thinking of trying Ubuntu again" thread)-worked with all m graphics etc, which Ubuntu 7.10 didnt. However I still had the same Wi-fi problems (it seeing the network and not connecting).
 
manic111 said:
Mint does seem nice (I tried it, see my "thinking of trying Ubuntu again" thread)-worked with all m graphics etc, which Ubuntu 7.10 didnt. However I still had the same Wi-fi problems (it seeing the network and not connecting).
Click to expand...

Yeah, Mint's okay.. but you quoted me talking about Ubuntu 8.4 :D

Hardy Alpha6 worked with my Lappy straight away.. wireless, function keys, suspend/hibernate.. pretty much the only changes I made were to install ntfs-config and VLC :)

If it came with ATI drivers, gstreamer plugins, ntfs-config and VLC, it'd be the perfect distro so far imo :)
 
Spider said:
Where to start... My Wireless no longer works (the card is detected but it refuses to connect to my WPA network), my ATI graphics card no longer works correctly (will not correctly let me set the resolution, nor does it like any of the supplied drivers other than the not so lovely VESA) the 3D effects are consequently no longer working, many of the in built tools and apps (such as the network manager, synaptic, system monitor and about 4 or 5 others) just continually hang and then have to be forced closed.

I know Ubuntu isn't the greatest on a Laptop, but the OS was running sweetly on 7.04 (its a Dell Inspiron 6400). Wish I'd never bothered to upgrade now as its been a joke ever since.

Trying ANOTHER clean install now....
Click to expand...

Did it work? You problems may be something else as it is a lot ,
 
Arch, I prefer it to Ubuntu.

I used to use Gentoo but Arch has everything I liked in it without having to wait around for things to compile :)
 
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