[Tfug] Need help finding a distro

[Linux Media]

earljviolet at deserthowler.com wrote:
> I work at World Care checking out III computers for the store.  We sold
> some computers with Ubuntu 7.10 installed.  Things were working fine.  The
> 7.10 repositories are now closed.
> 
> I went to Ubuntu 8.04 because it is LTS.  It worked great.  I set up a few
> with a Cisco Wireless card and they worked fine too.  These machines are
> PIII 800+ with 385 MB memory.
> 
> In going to 8.04 we encountered a problem.  Plugging a different monitor
> brings the video down.  Not just to 800x600 but to totally unusable.  OK,
> switch to a console and run 'sudo dpkg -reconfigure -phigh xserver -xorg';
> that always works.  Then run sudo startx.  Good looking desktop but it
> doesn't work.  Gasp!!  Reboot.
> 
> Go to recovery mode in Grub.  Run XFIX.  Same messed up screen ... go to
> console but keyboard is dead.  Can't shutdown.  Pull plug.
> 
> Restart and can get into root in recovery mode.  Use Ubuntu 8.04 Live CD. 
> Check xorg.config on live cd and open xorg.config on hard drive.  They are
> the same.
> 
> Decide that this isn't a workable situation for computers for the public. 
> Most people want some kind of desk top.
> 
> Ubuntu 9.04 gives the same problem.
> 
> Does anyone know of a distro we can use that will work for the general
> public and not have this problem?
> 
> Earl

I've been pretty happy with Fedora (currently 10). Although, Fedora (and 
the repos) only support free software. If you want all the things 
Windows has/does, then you can go find everything you need out there and 
painfully install them.

Although...

I stumbled onto this howto. I never tried it through...
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-fedora-10

I run KDE and I found that Fedora favors running Gnome so much that I 
have to uncheck Gnome and check KDE in the screen that allows for 
choosing the packages you want to install (during the initial install). 
Otherwise it makes installing and running KDE very difficult afterwords.

The howto shows you how to do everything through Gnome. So if you're a 
KDE person, this may be a problem. I once tried to uninstall Gnome and 
install KDE (after) the initial install and it rendered my machine useless.

If what you're trying to do is to just have an OS so customers can see 
that the computer works, then the basic Fedora install is perfect for 
that. BTW... we did this in Austin Texas for Goodwill Computer Center. 
We set up computers with linux (not Fedora at the time) and in exchange, 
they let us have our User Group there every Tuesday.

Imagine that... you go to a user group and there's tons of computers 
running linux. We brought in some newbies that way also.

Good luck,
Rocco