I have an Inspiron 2500, actually. I don't really use it much anymore, but I've been running Linux on it for years. The first thing I used on it was Debian (sarge), I think. After that it was pretty much all Ubuntu Linux.
For a long time there was a bug in the video driver that made it so videos played back had a big blue square in the middle, but that was fixed a few years back and it was pretty much smooth sailing after that. I also know that suspend and hibernate weren't working right when I first got the thing (years ago), and I can't recall if I ever got it working. Honestly the battery life quickly became so bad that I pretty much had to just use it plugged in all the time. At the time, at least, these issues seemed to be present with every distro I tried. The last thing I installed on there was Ubuntu 7.4 (Feisty Fawn). Recent versions of Knoppix also worked. I like Ubuntu for a lot of reasons, but mostly IIRC I has really happy with the fact that many things, like scrolling with the touchpad, just worked with the default install. I looked at installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) on there but I was having some trouble with it not being able to find the right video mode. That's the first and only time I had that problem with Ubuntu, so I assume it's probably just a temporary bug. I was actually planning to try installing Ubuntu 8.4 on the laptop when that release comes out in a few days. Since Ubuntu Install CDs are also Live CDs, that makes it easier to just try it out. Actually, because I have the Celeron 800 version of the Inspiron 2500, which is not so fast by modern standards, I was thinking of trying Xubuntu (that's Ubuntu with XFCE instead of the Gnome desktop) in hopes it'll be a little lighter and snappier. Regards, Nick Russ wrote: > Hello, > > I'm planning on installing linux on a laptop. Does anybody recommend any > particular versions that work well with laptops? FWIW, the laptop in > question is a Dell Inspiron 2500. > > Sincerely, > > Russ Main >
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