Thread: Best Linux distro for a laptop?

I'm looking to install some version of Linux on my laptop, an Acer Aspire 9410-4933, to dual-boot with Vista. I've heard that (K)Ubuntu and Suse are the best distros to use on a laptop, but I'd like to know if anybody here knows of any more that might be better. I know these two distros are also supposed to be the easiest to use, but I don't really care too much about that, I've used Linux before.

I had Kanotix, a variation of Knoppix, on my old Dell laptop, and I've got my mother's computer dual-booting XP and Suse 10.0. I'd like a good, well-balanced distro, that has good hardware support. Preferably not Gentoo, just because it's hell to install and configure. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciatiated.

I personally love Arch Linux because it has all the power and control of Slackware, the performance and flexibility of Gentoo, and a great binary package manager (which, Slackware users beware, actually handles dependencies!). If you like Debian derivatives (you mentioned Kanotix), then you most certainly would love Arch, although it might take you a little while to adjust to its superior BSD init scripts. Arch, however, is no easier to install than Gentoo. I don't think Gentoo is any more difficult to install than most distros if you read the manual, but you seemed to suggest that you have had trouble installing Gentoo, so maybe you want to go with a GUI-wrapped "newbie" distro like Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu or openSUSE. Ubuntu doesn't seem to be riddled with power management issues, so it should be fine for a laptop. I've never used openSUSE, so I can't say one is better than the other.

I use Ubuntu, and really like it.

I use Knoppix for some special stuff, but only when needed.

Originally Posted by pj

I use Knoppix for some special stuff, but only when needed.

Might that special stuff be fixing your friends' and neighbors' Windows machines?

Originally Posted by dsr

Might that special stuff be fixing your friends' and neighbors' Windows machines?

It MIGHT be security related and pertaining to one of my responsibilities, which is maintaining and securing a network.

But yes - I have used it several times to recover totally toasted windows installations.

Arch sounds pretty good, dsr, but I must admit, I am a bit leery of text-based installs. I just don't want to read or type something wrong and wind up wiping out my Vista partition. I got my Ubuntu and Kubuntu CDs today, I'll give them a spin later.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys. Keep 'em coming.

Ubuntu worked really well for me as well.