Linux for laptop?

[CreatedByShadow]

I just recently installed Kubuntu 7.04 alongside with Windows XP SP2 on my laptop. It worked good except for two problems.

1) Its not detecting my wireless network when Windows XP does ( Wireless adapter = Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN card )

2) There is no sound. Even though it detects my sound card just fine.

Anyways my question is, would you guys happen to know of any distros that work well with laptops? My laptop specs are listed below:

HP Pavilion dv2120us
AMD Turion64 X2 1.6Ghz (Dual core)
1024MB RAM
120GB HDD
nVidia GeForce Go 6150 (128MB shared)

Thanks in advance!!

[brewbuck]

1) Its not detecting my wireless network when Windows XP does ( Wireless adapter = Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN card )

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=297092

2) There is no sound. Even though it detects my sound card just fine.

Have you made sure the hardware mixer volume is turned up?

[CreatedByShadow]

Holy crap thanks for the guide! I spent all morning browing google for a guide like this!

Also, how would I find out if my mixer is turned up?

[kroiz]

No disrespect to this forum, but I think you will get more help in the ubuntu forums.

[CreatedByShadow]

No disrespect to this forum, but I think you will get more help in the ubuntu forums.

None taken. I just kinda figured that since brewbuck knew the solution to the wireless problem, he would know the solution to the sound problem.

[brewbuck]

Holy crap thanks for the guide! I spent all morning browing google for a guide like this!

Really?

For the record, my search was "linux broadcom 1390" and it was the first hit.

Good Google searches are so obvious when you see them... But it's an acquired skill.

[dwks]

2) There is no sound. Even though it detects my sound card just fine.

Are you using the first user created by the installer? I had some trouble with this; the first user gets added to the sound (or maybe sounds) group, while users you create after that do not. Type "id" at a command prompt to see.

Anyway, this is unlikely to be the problem. Just thought I'd mention it.

I recently installed Debian 4.0 onto an AMD64 laptop. It worked really well -- much better than Debian 3.1, which didn't officially support AMD64, after all. The mouse tapped-to-click immediately after install, along with drag-your-finger-along-the-side-to-scroll. The wired enthernet adapter worked with virtually no configuration. It detected my unusual screen mode. It hibernated with no configuration. (The previous kernel didn't support this.) And Debian's package management is incredible: you can install anything with no trouble.

The only thing that still isn't working is the wireless card. They seem to be a hassle to get working.

I'd highly recommend Debian. But I'm sure that other distributions work very well too, Debian's just the one I use the most.

[CreatedByShadow]

Well, I just switched over to Sabayon. Basically I get a Gentoo distro without the tiresome gentoo installation process. Only distro to have the compiz effect on LiveDVD.

Just installed it this morning and let me tell you, it runs great. Everything worked straight out of the box, even the crappy broadcom wireless card. And Compiz-fusion is an amazing peice of software.