Linux on older laptops

[Nick Manley]

On 12/29/05, Bill Cavalieri <bcavalieri at lumensoftware.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2005-12-29 at 14:20 +0000, Luke-Jr wrote:
> > On Thursday 29 December 2005 08:57, Leo Mauler wrote:
> > > As for wireless support, learn this keyword: "ndiswrapper".
> >
> > ndiswrapper is just a hack to use immoral drivers. Not a real solution
> at all.
> >
>
> When my options are no wireless support or ndiswrapper, feels like a
> solution to me.
>

I do agree with Luke in that I too feel icky using cheap hacks/workarounds
to make stuff work but at the same time its the only thing you've got.  I
too use ndiswrapper and went through hell and back to make it work
properly.  There are compatible cards out there, but not many.  Stuff like
this is going to continue to happen until Linux becomes more mainstream.
Although this kind of stuff also happens in the windows world too.  I've
seen many posts on message boards about people who have trouble finding
anything that has drivers for Windows XP x64 edition.  But thats just a part
of using an alternative operating system.  Sometimes you get lucky, other
times you have to work with it.  Unless of course your on a Macinotosh but
thats another boat in a different sea.

As for the original question its pretty much been answered.  You can use
whatever distro you want considering your "older" laptop seems to be a
little more powerful than you might think.  Its just a matter of getting the
right hardware and software.  If you still feel as though its a little
slugish just use Fluxbox or XFCE or whatever you prefer instead of
kde/gnome.
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