Offline User Friendly Linux Distro with Updated Wine?

[CritAnime]

Linux is not for everyone. But it can be made as easy or as hard as needed. Ubuntu and by proxy mint are the easiest because that's what they are aiming to do. Both can have additional drivers loaded into them by using the additional hardware option. Updates roll in at a more regular basis too. And if you are after a more 'windows' experience then it's easy to install kde. Software can be installed via the software installer store or by the apt-get install command from terminal.

[nicholas]

If I were you I'd just install Kubuntu 12.10 and the KDE 4.10.1 backports.

In fact that's what I'm currently running. (Plus a few extra package repositories, the Liquorix kernel and NVidia binaries from their website)

[XDelusion]

No, I don't really want the Windows experience, that's why I remove the default start bar from my beloved IcarOS distros.

Don't want a OS X like experience either, I think all in all what I want is Amiga, Aros, MorphOS, and Haiku, so I will sell this hardware, keep working on my DOOM project in Windows, and skip Linux and Wine all together because honestly, it doesn't flow all fluid like, like my above mentioned loved OS'. I'll just bear with Window while I'm editing as that's about all I use Windows for anymore anyhow, well that and video and audio editing, but that's only because those great Linux media tools are not portable to next get Amiga platforms because we lack Widgets and all that other jazz that the main three OS' have easy access to.

[nicholas]

There's always this

http://www.bodhilinux.com/

e17 is unlike anything else.....

[XDelusion]

There's always this

http://www.bodhilinux.com/

e17 is unlike anything else.....

Until Linux can come out with a Desktop distro that makes me forget I'm using Linux, and make me believe I'm running an advanced Amiga OS or Haiku, then I ain't going back.

Likewise installing things such as hardware should be obvious. I remember once I used an Ubuntu disto that automatically popped up and said,"hey man, you need drivers from the maker of that hardware, want me to go get them for you?" And I was like,"sure thing man!".

Of course if I had to do something like, I dunno, goto Nvidia's page, download a package, double click it, hit NEXT NEXT NEXT, maybe reboot, then I'm done? Well I'd settle for that too.

But when I have to memorize, not a few commands here and there like I do with AMiga OS, but have to memorize paragraphs of commands just to get my OS to do the very basics, I.E. use my hardware, well then I'm turned off. And I"m turned off by the fact that it seems to take a while to boot and shut down, it does not run very smooth on low end hardware unless you want to go with that primitive 1994 GUI look, etc. I just don't like it, makes me sick to my stomach, and though it is free of adware and all the corporate B.S., it's still not enough to get me to use it, not even for Wine. Hopefully some day ReactOS matures some more, I'd love to be able to replace Windows for those handful of apps I have no window-less alternatives for, but ya, Linux ain't the answer for me, I hated it when I was learning it in the 90's and I can instantly tell I still hate it.

EDIT: Well if Aeros would actually boot on anything, I'd still love to give that a try.

[nicholas]

I think the best OS sitting on a Linux kernel for you can be found at the first link in my signature.

[XDelusion]

I think the best OS sitting on a Linux kernel for you can be found at the first link in my signature.

No doubt, would it not be nice to run Amithlong on modern hardware with Wifi and the whole nine yards?!

[nicholas]

No doubt, would it not be nice to run Amithlong on modern hardware with Wifi and the whole nine yards?!

Well there is http://aminet.net/package/driver/net/prism2v2

But if you meant that it would be great if Amithlon was still developed I'd wholeheartedly agree.

[XDelusion]

Well there is http://aminet.net/package/driver/net/prism2v2

But if you meant that it would be great if Amithlon was still developed I'd wholeheartedly agree.

Interesting, that or this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/320924766108?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Then again, my on board chipset is not well liked by Amithlon. I thought since it was running on Linux that it could somehow be updated to support pretty well what ever Linux supports, but I don't understand it all anyhow.


EDIT: Oh ya wait, no one bothered to make USB do anything except support Keyboard and Mouse in Amithlong. Guess that Wifi device would be useless on it, bummer.

[TheBilgeRat]

Mint is not meant for a 7 year old laptop, and KDE 4x is certainly not meant for one that old either.  Crunch BAng, or Bodhi, running E17 or openbox is more the right speed.

[XDelusion]

Mint is not meant for a 7 year old laptop, and KDE 4x is certainly not meant for one that old either.  Crunch BAng, or Bodhi, running E17 or openbox is more the right speed.

Oh ya? Hmmm, so much of the Linux community acts like Microsoft and Apple when it comes to resources too hugh? We got em' why not waste em'?

O.K. you got my attention. Windows is pissing me off again too.

Any of those distros you mentioned make it easy to find out what drivers you need and get them without having to be a Linux guru?

Man I wish AROS fully supported this, I could just drag and drop the required drivers to where I need them. :/

[CritAnime]

Crunch bang has a pretty extensive wiki. Plus their user community is friendly. But it comes with enough drivers to get it working on a fresh install. Only things I tend to do is install the nvidia drivers which is shown on their wiki. Also there is a script which runs on first startup that downloads stuff.

[nicholas]

Linux drivers are part of the kernel, usually you don't install them separately.

The main exception to this rule is binary drivers from ATI and Nvidia.

[nicholas]

Mint is not meant for a 7 year old laptop, and KDE 4x is certainly not meant for one that old either.  Crunch BAng, or Bodhi, running E17 or openbox is more the right speed.

I run the latest KDE 4.10.1 on a 5yr old 2.5GHz Core2 Duo with 4GB RAM and an Nvidia 8600M GT. It runs very nicely indeed with full compositing etc.

My 11yr old runs the same version on a much older Core2 Duo machine with Intel graphics chip and half the RAM and it works fine there too.

[nicholas]

What drivers do you need in particular? A recent kernel should have drivers for 7yr old hardware built-in.

Can you boot an Ubuntu live CD and type the following in a terminal please.

lspci>pci.txt
lsusb>usb.txt
lshw>hw.txt

Then attach those three files to a post here.

[TheBilgeRat]

Oh ya? Hmmm, so much of the Linux community acts like Microsoft and Apple when it comes to resources too hugh? We got em' why not waste em'?

Anymore, yes :/  KDE 4.x, Unity, and Gnome 3.x are monuments to this thinking.  While Nicholas says he has KDE 4 running on 11 year old hardware just fine, I would not assume that to hold without loss of generality.  The simple truth is you will sacrifice some speed for eye candy, and sacrifice some ease (as in "push button change config") of configuration with faster, lighter weight solutions.  The integrated distros (crunchbang, linux mint LXDE edition, Lubuntu?  So many) that use LXDE, or E17, or Openbox + will run much faster on older hardware, period.

Having SAID that...  As commodore john has pointed out, Linux can..er..suck.  It is still not windows - and coming from a windows background can be obtuse and confusing as to how they do things.  I have never set up a linux that is completely GUI driven for all setup yet.  They may be out there - I just don't know of them.

BUT, if you don't mind some googling and a bit of tinkering at first (I mean, c'mon!  We are Amiga people in 2013!  We are no strangers to obtuse breakages and googling) you can end up with a very stable system.

O.K. you got my attention. Windows is pissing me off again too.

Any of those distros you mentioned make it easy to find out what drivers you need and get them without having to be a Linux guru?

Man I wish AROS fully supported this, I could just drag and drop the required drivers to where I need them. :/

Like Nicholas said, mostly all drivers should automagically be found by the kernel during install.  From you laptop's era, the couple of things that probably won't be found are wireless card drivers (lots of closed hardware blobs not linuxable right out of the box) and wintel modems.  Everything else should be fine, if at least functional.  These days, even Nvidia drivers are installed (via the Nouveau driver set).  Your laptop has an Intel set if I remember right, so it should have no problems on the display side.  I've never run into an install in the last 14 years that wouldn't display.