Re: Vista to Unix

Jeffrey Drake writes:

I have used Ubuntu (7.10) on this laptop before, and I have been quite
displeased about its shoddy wireless networking and ACPI sleep
support. It was often that the wireless networking would simply NOT
work after waking up. Also, sometimes the sleep function would
essentially freeze the machine before it even went to sleep.

What I am looking for is something to solve those problems primarily.
I am willing to consider FreeBSD 7, Slackware, or even Fedora if it is
reasonably better than Ubuntu in this regard.

You simply have to try one distro after another until you find one that works best for you. Different Linux distributions are based off different kernel versions, with different configuration options. Someone's laptop may, for example, work great with Fedora, but wouldn't even boot Debian, but someone else's different laptop hardware might give the opposite results.

Unless someone happens to have the exact hardware that you have, and tell you exactly what works or doesn't work for them, it's going to be trial and error. Try to ignore the helpful, but simple-minded, folks who emphatically tell you that just because distribution X works on some other laptop Y, that their distribution X is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I do not care for NetworkManager, as the version included with 7.10
seemed to be an attempt to produce something that Windows does fairly
well, but make it actually suck.

Case in point. NetworkManager, on my laptop, works great. Wireless Just Works™, right out of the box.

My laptop is an Acer Aspire 5570, it uses Intel's video and wireless,
I believe it is a 945 based chipset, but I am not 100% sure on this.

Any thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.

It's not like you have to pay to obtain a copy of each different Linux distro, so you're not going to broke by trying them all, one at a time. If Ubuntu didn't work for you, try Fedora. In nearly all cases, either Fedora or Ubuntu will work. On the oft chance it doesn't, you can try Slackware, then Debian.

Generally, Intel's wireless and video hardware enjoy the most reliable support on Linux, so your chances of finding something that works are very good.

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