Best linux Distro for R52

[Nightcall]

I've done a forum search as well as googling and it seems that due to graphics limitations etc that Ubuntu may not be the best. Suggestions please on USB-bootable Linux OSes; being an abused Windows child I am in real unfamiliar territory with this.

What I really want is that C compiler included free with most Linux distros; the free ones for Win XP are either really out dated or unstable/unsupported.

Thanks

[ajkula66]

ATi or Intel graphics on that R52 of yours?

[Nightcall]

Intel intergrated no ATI.

[posscakes]

Slax (slax.org) is a good one to run off a usb. Or if you gonna install to a hard drive Debian (debian.org), if you use the net install its a fair bit more flexible you can choose what you wish to include or not... Ubuntu and Mint (and stacks of others) were all basically derived from Debian they all work much the same, its a good family of distros especially for a first time user as they are relatively easy to set up and use.

[ajkula66]

Intel intergrated no ATI.

Anything you feel like. Mint would be my recommendation.

[Nightcall]

Thanks to both of you I will give both distros a try.

[posscakes]

An alternative to a debian/ubuntu system etc is an Arch or Arch based system. The main difference is in the package management and file systems a little different from a debian based system. ArchLinux can be a bit more involved setting up (mind you I haven't set one up for a while but the install has been streamlined a fair bit since) but in general the documentation for Arch (archwiki) is excellent. You can also get readymade Arch based distros like Archbang and Manjaro that are really easy to install that will give you an out the box system to work with (then you can use all archwiki etc to customize it) One good thing to know with any linux setup is where to find support when you need it. The answers are not always on the distro's forums (they sometimes do and its still worth a search) but sometimes its relatively easy to contact the developer of the actual program your trying to configure with your hardware. For example with Linux audio theres a mailing list (like a yahoo group) and a few forums that its completely common to see the primary authors of Ardour, Mixbus, Qtractor etc trouble shooting with users. I had great fortune with a yamaha interface that had no drivers for linux, i basically emailed the dude that maintains the ALSA usb drivers (alsa is the linux sound server), sent him an output reading off my computer, then he sent me back a kernel patch, recompiled my kernel with patch, working interface... Anyway best of luck.

[Nightcall]

I ran windows upgrade asst and said, among other negatives, that I didnt have "NX" turned on and perhaps windows could do it for me. I 've heard win8 runs marvelous on netbooks or more modern low performance machines and am willing to try it.

What is the forums thoughts on win8 and older thinkpads?

When XP doomsday rolls around next April worst case (or best, depending how much you prefer open source) I'll slap Puppy Linux on it.