Ubuntu install

[porkchopexpress]

I haven't used Linux for a while as i largly work in the Windows world I'm thinking about trying Ubuntu for a while to get back into it. I have a spare 5 Gig partition on my Laptop hard drive is this going to be enough?

Can anyone recommend a better distro to install on my Acer Aspire 1313LC laptop, driver isses etc?

Cheers.

 

[pentode]

5 GB should be adequate. I run a standard Debian Etch install on a very old Sony laptop with 6 GB drive. Of course, it won't hold all the songs from your 60 GB iPod....

You might want to burn a live Knoppix disk and see how it handles your laptop devices. That will give you a chance to sniff out potential problems before doing the actual install.

The sticking points for laptops seem to be wireless NICs and CD-ROM drives. You should plan on the need for a wired Internet connection until you can get the wireless up and running.

 

[porkchopexpress]

Yes i thought that might be an issue i have a BT wireless card that seems to use a Broadcom driver, i've seen hints of a wrapper out there that works but for not i can stick a cable in the back. I'll be dual booting with XP and using a shared date partition is FAT32 the best file system for this or are reliable NTFS drivers available for Linux now?

Thanks.

 

[porkchopexpress]

Ah i think i've answered that last question.

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

 

[pentode]

The fallback option for wireless on linux is ndiswrapper. This may come with Ubuntu as a standard, but you may still need to copy the Windows drivers over to your linux machine.

With Debian, ndiswrapper has to be compiled and installed (but Debian provides the very capable module-assistant package to handle this.