Offline User Friendly Linux Distro with Updated Wine?

[nicholas]

I have MINT installed (Debian version) and CAN NOT for the life of me see the obvious place to go to upgrade my drivers, let alone detect my internal wireless network device.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

[nicholas]

Try http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=1867

Or here in 17hrs:

http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:12.3?pk_campaign=counter

Edit: I recommend the KDE Live CD of OpenSuse.

[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)

[nicholas]

There's always this

http://www.bodhilinux.com/

e17 is unlike anything else.....

[nicholas]

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

[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.

[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.

[nicholas]

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,

Erm, my 11yr old step-daughter has it running on her 7yr old hardware. lol

[nicholas]

It is still not windows - and coming from a windows background can be obtuse and confusing as to how they do things.

I've never understood the thinking of those that want UNIX to be like Windows.  If you want Windows use Windows. Simples!

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.

Perhaps his laptop has the dreaded Poulsbo chipset?  Was that chipset even around 7yrs ago?

[nicholas]

Did I mention I use Ken's icons on my KDE setup?

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/?content=118574

[nicholas]

You want your Linux experience to be like that of Amiga OS 3.x where you have to do everything manually? Then you need http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/

You want it to be like Windows? Can't help you.

[nicholas]

Don't get me wrong HayWire, there is a lot to be respected about Linux, I like the ad free software and such, the secure browsing, and the fact that it is not controlled by a corporate entity, but alas...


I'm not one of those guys who just wants a nice GUI based system where all the software is pre-compiled, and I can pretty much just drag and drop drivers where ever I need them etc. Amiga and BeOS spoiled me I guess you could say. I took classes on Linux years ago, but every class I felt like not showing up again and really only did so because I got along so well with everyone else in the class, but ya, I did not like the learning curve that was required for that kind of freedom, so I'll settle with the Freedom that Amiga OS, MorphOS, AROS, and Haiku provide also.

Command line Haiku is pretty much identical to Linux so if you get comfortable with it on Haiku then Linux will become much easier for you.

BTW: If you are interested I ported the command line Amiga module player/emulator to Haiku a few weeks back.

http://ports.haiku-files.org/ticket/695

[nicholas]

IF 1.0 hits

I like Haiku as well, but it is taking its sweet time to get here.  Also, while I love tinkering with it on my P4, it needs to get going on the 64 bit bandwagon.  Who knows, tho - its really a great time for OSes.

Et voila!

http://haiku-files.org/unsupported-builds/x86_64/