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Ask Slashdot: Linux Distro For Hybrid Laptop?
Steve Parrish writes: I needed a new laptop and found a great deal on an Asus Transformer TP500L. It's one of the laptops where you can flip the screen back and use it as a tablet. I'd like to replace Windows 8.1, and I'm having a difficult time finding a Linux distro that will work on it. I'm familiar with Mint, SolydX, and older Ubuntu versions. I tried the latest Ubuntu with Unity and didn't like it, but the OS installed with only a few minor issues. Has anyone tried any other distros on a hybrid laptop with a touchscreen? I've used Linux for several years, but I'm no guru -- I'm not comfortable with the command line or other advanced workings. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
There is nothing really polished out there.
Does anyone else remember a time when getting the X Window System to work properly was considered advanced? And now the command line is considered advanced... I guess I'm getting old.
Put Android on it (seriously), or Ubuntu, or a distro with KDE4 geared towards tablets.
The Linux userland support for tablets is really abysmal.
Any of them, so long as you don't mind your touchscreen, wifi, video or power management not working. Pretend you're stranded on a desert island with no wifi or electricity. Have fun with it!
I have Ubuntu 14.04 running on an 'older' Acer aspire one (a pretty shitty machine, but actually works okay with SSD disk and Ubuntu).
. It's probably easiest to install, you get used to the Unity interface after awhile really. The things it doesn't install correctly I just googled with mostly easy fixes (apt-get this and that).
There are actually ways of not using Unity but the old Gnome interface for example. Again, Google is your friend (in this case).
I had the same issue with a Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13". Tried several distros (ubuntu, mint, fedora 19 then 20 then 21) and the one that gives the best hardware support overall was fedora 21. Touchscreen works, flipping the screen and rotating the laptop also rotate the screen. The touchscreen works so/so, better than a mouse (ubuntu and fedora 20) you can now scroll and paginate chrome, however more advanced use of the touchscreen (gestures) would require advanced tweaking. Fedora 21 also recognized wifi and BT out of the box, as well as power management.
Then "apt-get update && apt-get install xubuntu" or "apt-get update && apt-get install kubuntu"
Don't give up just because the default GUI blows chunks.
Let your uses dictate your choice. What are you going to use this device for?
Email? Browsing the web? Programming? Watching movies? Games? Making the best of your time in a subway? What other devices do you already have? Is this going to be your primary computer? Is power consumption a consideration? Etc.
I'm afraid that there is currently no good one-size-fits-all solution. Whatever you decide, it will have to be a compromise.
I don't know about transformers, but I have tried a lot of distros lately on Lenovo convertible laptops, and my best experience has definitely been with Fedora. The setup is almost as easy as Ubuntu and the touch screen works well.
I'm not a Debian fan and I typically pick CentOS, but I was surprised to see how Fedora is more polished and convenient.
lucm, indeed.
How about leaving Windows 8.1 on it? The device you have is the very device 8.1 was designed around. Linux will be clunky compared to it.
I have the exact same laptop model, and am currently running Ubuntu 14.10. Not saying it is perfect, but it runs well enough. The laptop is new enough that current drivers for the WiFi hardware are not included with Ubuntu (I have tried a few things, with marginal success, currently using a WiFi USB dongle). The touch pad (not screen, that works well off the bat) settings needed to be tweaked in order to be used as well. One other thing I have noticed is that sometimes during certain operations, the cursor and/or tooltips can flicker.
Overall, it runs well with those things being the only issues.
Link to wifi workaround:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1796
Link to touchpad workaround:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=179238
Good Luck!
buy cheap but buy often.
with old laptops / computers from what I have experienced. If you want bleeding edge packages, I would suggest Arch but since you are not comfortable with CLI, you will probably want someone else to do the installation for you.
I've got a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, and as a good-few-years fan of KDE on OpenSuse have tried a live-USB on it.
The hardware support was almost perfect -everything except the MS Type Cover attachment is fine. That was a deal-breaker for me but I suspect your Asus may have a more orthodox keyboard.
In my experience OpenSuse is pretty good for non-gurus (like me), works well on a range of hardware, and offers a choice of desktop environments that are all pretty well implemented, and can install side-by-side for you to experiment. (IME and by reputation it's one of the better distros for KDE - however you may find the general touch support better in Gnome).
I just put Linux Mint 17.1 MATE 64-bit on a Lenovo IdeaPad S415. Everything just worked out of the box, and that includes both the multitouch touchpad and the touchscreen. Also the network, wifi, sound, and graphics. Everything.
http://notebookplanet.blogspot.com/2013/12/lenovo-ideapad-s415-specs.html
That IdeaPad is a year old. A year ago, no Linux that I tried worked out of the box with it; graphics didn't work. X always got confused by the fact that the machine has two graphics adapters (one built-in to the AMD APU chip, and a discrete one).
I've really been enjoying Linux Mint 17.1; it seems to be a big improvement over Linux Mint 16. You can easily and non-destructively try it, just by booting from a USB flash drive that has Linux Mint on it. (You can use UNetBootIn to make the USB flash drive.)
While I can't guarantee that Linux Mint 17.1 will work on your hardware, it worked great on mine so I think it's worth your time to try it out.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Mint. The answer for a distro is always Mint. (Unless you're a business that mandates RedHat.)
Be a mindless slave to peer pressure! Use whatever DistroWatch says is most popular!
A couple of people have mentioned success with Fedora. That doesn't surprise me because Fedora is supposed to have all the latest packages, with the latest in touchscreen features and the newest version of drivers for the newest hardware. However, balance that against the other side of the coin. Because Fedora is based on the latest and newest, they don't provide the type of long term support for older versions that Ubuntu and some others do.
If you choose Fedora, realise that pretty soon you'll have to decide to either a) upgrade to the next version of Fedora or b)stick with the versions you have of all the software. Don't plan on installing the 2017 version of a program on a 2014 version of Fedora. Plan to either upgrade the whole OS or upgrade nothing in a few years.
Ubuntu and CentOS are more about long term stability. The current version of CentOS will be getting updated packages by years from now, so you can keep using the same version of CentOS and update packages as needed.
The downside to the more long term stable distros is that they may not have the latest and greatest touch screen features - they'll have well-tested packages that have already proved themselves in Fedora for a year before they are added to CentOS (debranded RHEL).
You can install a different desktop/GUI on Ubuntu. Pick one you think you'll like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment then see if it's in Ubuntu's software repository. If not, pick a different one.
This way you'll get the GUI you want and the hardware support of Ubuntu.
The laptop being a hybrid laptop with a touchscreen doesn't matter. Tablet PCs have existed for decades and they're exactly the same thing. Linux works well enough on them. Flipping a screen is normally handled like a button press. If it doesn't work out of the box then you should follow the normal procedures for linking a special keyboard button to a script or simply have a 'rotate screen' script file on your desktop and run that anytime you want to flip. You didn't ask, but you might want to look into the handwriting related programs: Xournal, CellWriter, and SHIP.
Xournal: http://xournal.sourceforge.net/
CellWriter: risujin.org/cellwriter/
SHIP: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ship-project/
Better rotation info: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2116275
Is /. becoming some kind of stackoverflow.com? I mean, this kind of question doesn't deserve to make its path to /., it is a trivial question with a very limited number of choices and not really distro related, rather than GUI related with three choices.
Achille Talon
Hop!
This may turn out to be a situation where your best way to run Linux reliably is going to be full screen under VMware. No driver problems, etc.
fencepost
just a little off
I keep hybrid tablet-laptop around as an art PC. It used to be an old Toshiba Satellite; now it's a Sony VAIO Duo 11. I run Slackware on it, like I do nearly all my machines. Slackware will run fine if the digitizer part is supported by the kernel (since new Wacom and N-Trig parts come out from time to time, sometimes kernel support may be missing or naff if the laptop is too new). Otherwise you will see reduced functionality, but that is true of any distro.
Using a stylus you can drive most aspects of a WM or DE. It gets tricky using your finger.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
You can install Gnome (and possibly Synaptic) and then use Metacity (but I am not sure it thrives on a tablet).
Constructively speaking, the guys telling you to try the latest Mint are the smart money. Do it before giving up. It is a better bet than anything else.
But seriously, you've used Linux for YEARS and are not "comfortable" with the command line? Really? I am really not sure linux is a good idea for you if you won't make the investment in learning. It's not a criticism. Getting any really good results out of linux requires either a friend who is an expert to set it up and occasionally support it, or requires a serious commitment to learning, and that's not for everybody.
What the fuck are you using Linux for then?
8.1 is the best OS they have done. When the time comes, do upgrade to 10, but for now keep 8.1 and use VMs for any Linux-based needs.
Why not just leave Windows 8.1 ? It is actually good as a tablet operating system. People on Slashdot really have to get used to the idea that there is a diverse device ecosystem out there, and to uninstall Windows will use a lot of your personal time for a result that may not work out so well for you.
If you need some other functionality (such as a Linux dev environment) then fine, but just to change an OS that works smoothly with your tablet for one that might not seems silly.
Arch Linux and a few tweaks and you're good to go https://wiki.archlinux.org/ind...
Are you able to boot from a USB stick? I found this tool quite useful for trying out a variety of live-linux iso's on a usb drive:
yumi
It provides some useful links to download what is needed to try out a whole bunch of different distros. You can also stack a number of different distros on the same usb drive and choose which one to boot from at startup.
Personally I have been using Debian for quite a few years now, gave ubuntu a brief try but wasn't too happy with it.
I have installed Mint on virtual recently and it really does look as good as people here have stated. Mint would be my final recommendation too.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
I am using arch with gnome on a Samsung ativ book plus. Arch is great because you always have the latest kernel, thus better drivers, and because of the huge online community. I've found gnome to be the best UI regarding touch support. KDE is way more customizable, it should do the job too, I choose gnome because it also has hidpi support, my Samsung has a 13" 3200x1800 display and that's pretty unusable with kde.
normally one would google that and it would come up with instances where people have installed GNU/Linux OSes on the specific hardware in question, and the older the hardware and the more popular it is, the larger the chance of finding someone else who has done exactly that and created a report (or five). unfortunately however, at this very moment, the search engine results show a huge number of interfering references to a site known as "slashdot", as well as RSS syndicated links to the same.
so you can either just risk it and try it, then get on one of the popular forums, or you can wait for things to calm down a bit and the google searches which include slashdot syndication of its front-page drop off the pagerank a bit (should take a couple of days).
that having been said: it looks like it's a standard laptop with an x86 chipset, so it should almost certainly boot. touchpanels tend to use all the same chipsets, and those have been supported in the linux kernel for some time due to GPL compliance, so you should be fine.
Wow and I thought the RTFM N00B neckbeard stereotype was a myth.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
ROSA Fresh R5, I guess.
Install a Linux with both KDE for tablets, and some other Linux desktop of your choice. It should work fairly well. You can logout to swap desktops.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with the tablet part. Unfortunately, making something that is both a tablet and a laptop is a stupid idea, as Windows 8.1 has proven, so there is no good user interface that will work for both form factors.
If you want some horrible mess that someone has tried to engineer to work with both form factors, just use Windows 8.1. The whole design of this machine originates from a deranged Microsoft idea for trying to capture mobile market share. In time, anyone who ever uses one of these devices will learn that they are a truly awful idea, and they will just buy a tablet that is designed as a tablet, and if they need it, a laptop that is designed as a laptop. Since Windows now sucks on both, neither device will likely feature Windows, at least not if the user has any common sense.
A myth? You wish.
its linux make it fucking work or deal with windows you lazy shit for brains retard who bought something before you even knew if it would work for you
gawd
Such eloquence! The way you've constucted that sentence is absolute perfection and I doubt it can be improved upon. Maybe correcting some spelling mistakes and grammar would help. Possibly adding punctuation would help. But these are minor points and in no way detract from your masterful prose.
I'm altering my Slashdot relationship with you (to friend) so that I can keep up with your posts. Hopefully if I keep studying your writing one day I will also be able to craft solid messages with comparable clarity.
Since you seem to be comfortable navigating a computer with your fingers, perhaps you would consider using a keyboard and terminal. It includes tactile feedback and may be used without obscuring the contents of the screen. The CLI is supported by many "Desktop" and "Server" oriented Linux distributions as well as thousands of free and paid "apps".
http://crunchbang.org/
Feb 2004: "Ubuntu 13.10 on Windows Tablet - ASUS Transformer Book TX300 - Dual Boot with Windows 8.1"
best of both worlds
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Crunchbang is da BOMB! Truly running light without overbyte, and fast as hell. And it comes a fork of Firefox with the trademark problems called Iceweasel. You will have great fun telling you friends, "I Crunchbang my Iceweasel" when you ask you what browser you use.
You are not alone in your dislike for Unity.
I did install Ubuntu 14.04 Server edition on newer (2014) PCs that require UEFI, and it works fine.
But you have options: kubuntu (KDE desktop, which I am using now), xubuntu (XFCE desktop) or lubuntu (LXDE desktop). If you use the 14.04 from any of those, then you probably wouldn't have any issues compared to older versions.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Linux Lite is what Mint wants to be. All the right stuff, none of the useless fluff. It's the only distro that I can start using right after the install without spending an hour or more personalizing and reconfiguring. And yes, it is ubuntu/debian based. It uses the ubuntu repositories, so you CAN reconfigure it and install what you want easily, if you are so inclined.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
actually, I'd just go with Fedora, its got a nice easy and installer and gnome shell.
If ubuntu works then you don't have a problem. You're not stuck with unity, you know - either install one of the variants (xubuntu, kubuntu etc.) or sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop (or equivalent) to get the desktop environment of your choice.
If you don't like Unity, but Ubuntu seems to handle things OK, why not just replace the desktop with MATE or Cinnamon?
Actually, what I was wondering - couldn't he install something like Kubuntu or Mandriva, and then, install Plasma Active on it? How difficult would that be? In the KDE ecosystem, they did the sensible thing - make Plasma for laptops/desktops and Plasma Active for tablets. Maybe the OP could try that?
E19 is awsome on a tablet seriously try it. EFl, the underlying lib is funded by Samsung it is the basis for Tiz3n
you can also install a good linux distri, and have a windows VM for occasionnal use, when vwndors give you that shitty config utility that is win. only.
After 2-3 years, you can usually delete the windows VM, and free afew GB of HDD.
aaaaaaa
Windows 8 desktops, are just irritatingly ugly and not practical to do your work on. Non-crisp looking misty Windows icons, hidden away in icons. If you work with a Windows 8 desktop, for more than a couple of years you will end up with bad eyesight. If you are determined to make the Windows 8 desktop, work then you will spend hours on it customising it to make it usable for a work environment. Once you have achieved that and get used to it you will be told you need to update, it to the latest version which will make it look ridiculous again it will drive you fucking mad! You will spend even more time trying to make it look like a work environment again to the point where you are so sick of it you won't upgrade and you end up not using it. They all want to be a smart phone OS on a desktop.
aaaaaaa
Classic Shell may be of help to you. It's free. Used with Windows 7 and 8.
It is interesting that people sometimes offer free solutions for the huge mistakes Microsoft managers make.
thanks professor, glad you found time to grade my rant on the internet, now go find something useful to do for humanity
I describe a solution for you using different language than the previous posters. Like you I have lots of Linux experience but I did not realize quite how modular Ubuntu 14.4 can be when the default desktop called "Unity" is a bad fit with a particular computer and user.
First of all, "Unity" is an object called a desktop and there are other desktops that you can download and use. There are a lot of them.
I had a computer running Ubuntu 14.4 that took tens of seconds to do the simplest display updates with the Unity desktop.
To get another desktop, chug along with Unity and download an alternate lightweight desktop. A first try is lubuntu.
sudo apt-get install lubuntu # Say yes to a whole bunch of packages that come with it.
Now how do you start the new desktop? It is easy but non-obvious. Get your password ready.
In the upper right hand corner with the Wheelie icon choose "Log out ..."".
Look at the Log out screen at the upper right hand corner. One of those items is a drop down menu where you can choose your deskop.
If you downloaded lubuntu, click on it... then log back in. You are now running the new desktop of your choice.
With the different desktop you must reset settings like login preference and screen saver.
In summary, the desktop part of Ubuntu is modular and you can try various ones for the best fit with your computer.
Look up AdamW's Fedlet. However a more interseting question is why is linux so hard to get on thse classes of PC aka tablets. What force is locking linux users away from this hardware. If we were to look under the covers no doubt a huge conspiracy would emerge.
Fedora isn't bad, but it's almost bleeding edge with frequent releases and if you get a few versions behind the current one it's hard to get packages.
I am not trying to be mean or rude here but I feel I need to be straight forward and be honest here with what you are trying to do.
You say "I'm not comfortable with the command line or other advanced workings."
In summary: stick with windows or replace it with an ipad.
So why would you replace a perfectly optimized operating system for that hardware such as Windows 8, that is running right now with a random operating system that you will have no choice but deal with 'advanced workings' at some point to use it in anyway to it's full potential?
Also, what DO you actually DO on the tablet? Because honestly, the war on operating systems left years and years ago probably in the early 2000's... In this case, if you don't have the time and skills for 'advanced workings' then stick with windows. Also for everyday folk these days, they just want to run what ever program and pretty much forget the OS... without contradicting myself, if Linux had better hardware and software support it would just blend in and be a real choice, probably like Mac os Vs Windows in a way.
Some people worry so much about 'metro' but that's such old news now and any noob can workout how to 'turn off metro' if it's such a bother. - While people panic about the 'missing task bar' metro is actually pretty good with small tablets because you can pop all your programs there nice and use big icons for fumbling fingers.... have you even tried it? or just sitting there like a nasty child refusing to eat your vegetables.
Also, most people are such creatures of habbit they probably have an icon on the desktop anyway or just using the search with 1 letter will come up with what ever recently used program... but going from windows to Linux you are not gaining anything you are sacrificing a lot unique features that make tablets so much usable than just a few years back. (anyone remember those little cheap Chinese tablets with XP on them?? - horrible)
Linux doesn't have many proper applications compared to windows and you'll find it annoying even if you wanted to pay a good price.. they are just not available, except basic freeware and homemade bits pieces. Also I don't care what people say, the linux web experice is far from polished it's mostly a flickerly web browser and good luck using that with your touch screen that won't work without 'advanced workings. *sigh*. You are better off with an ipad, at least all major websites have gorn out of there way to support something that won't support basic plugins like flash etc.
Anyway, I still don't understand what you are trying to achieve, windows 8 runs the hardware perfectly and out of the box, you can immediately install useful programs and move on... and for example with my Surface Pro, it boots almost instantly and everything works, if I just want to live in 'web browser land' like people keep saying then at least I know my WiFi will work..and I can just install Chrome or Firefox to be a rebal they even support tablet mode! I can totally forget Internet Explorer ever existed.. they will run so much better than any linux version on a tablet.. Lets not kid our selves from what people are saying, Linux is stuck in 1999 mode and WiFi, BlueTooth, Basic CPU Optimizations, Accelerated Video, USB support are NOT luxuries...this is 2015, Jesus... even a touch screen is old news, but on a tablet you will WANT to use the touch screen properly and have basic things even like power managment. - good luck getting this to work with Linux.
Also, there will be that day when you just want to quickly print something... oh wait... then quickly plug in the phone and quickly synk stuff.. or when someone says can you grab the pic off the usb drive and run this portable version of photoshop... or plug into a projector without any drama... even that time you want to use features with your Xbox or smart TV.. the list of 'disadvantages' is quite serious, especially if you don't have time and the tech skills.
In summary, if you are a basic user and don't even have the tinkering te
I'll second Fedora, have it running flawlessly on a Lenovo Yoga. Even RPM seems to work these days :-)
Cheers,
Better security.
Better privacy.
Better performance.
No lock in.
Possibility to make things just so.
Use software that works well on Linux.
Reasons to use Windows/OS X:
Use software that doesn't work on Linux (except in a VM, which some prefer).
Linux runs poorly on the hardware.
Not interested in learning basic Linux skills.
I use openSUSE 13.2 with GNOME. It has proper multitouch for the screen.
I would suggest looking at the Ubuntu derivatives for one simple reason: Most of them support running from a USB stick, and you can try a few different ones to see if it's got the support you want. Several have mentioned Kubuntu. There's also Mint. And Knoppix, not Ubuntu-derived, while it's usually used as a rescue disk, can be installed. It'll run on most things with a CD player. When you've narrowed your choices down, or at least at some point, check out the user forums for the distro. How large are they? How friendly are they? How technical do they get? Find something you're comfortable with. Secret note #1: If you find an Ubuntu-based distro, Ubuntu's forums are available. Secret note #2: Most "command line" things these days are cut and paste. Quite often BASH scripts are posted that can help you with things (if you're not familiar with them, think Windows batch scripts). Start8 has been mentioned if that silly Modern interface is the problem. There are others. Good luck!