which distro with my config is best

[tigresskiss]

Here goes I'm new and need help, I want to install linux on my laptop I don't know which is best and will try any that are suggested.

This is what I tried so far :
linux mint cinm. wont install from disk missing a wireless driver hangs after this message
ubuntu 12.10 hangs while trying to boot black screen and a cursor is all I get
fedora wont run from the disk
open suse wont run or install from the disk


Heres my computer info:

HP Pavillion DV8225nr laptop
windows xp media center edtion 2002 sp2
AMD turion 64 mobile
tech ML-34
1.58 GHz
ACPI Uniprocessor PC
2.00 GB ram
wd 250 G HD
Realtek RTL813/810x fast ehernet nic
Broadcom 802.11b/g wlan
ATI MOBIITY RADEON xpress 200 series
1394 net adapter

I hope this info is enough to help me out I'm trying to get rid of windows no dual boot just Linux any help would be appreciated

Thank You for all help

PS I have a second pc I can use for help during the switch so I'm safe to do this.

[tigresskiss]

I finally have been able to get Ubuntu 12.10 downloaded and it installed as a dual boot but I can't for the life of me get the internet connection to work . I put in my SSID and the password and told it to auto detect the rest is needs but it wont connect maybe I'm doing something wrong or forgot a step. still don't know how to get rid of windows either.

[pane-free]

It's Broadcom that is giving you problems (and choosing 12.10 over the LTS, 12.04).
I think you'd like the new Salent OS with razor-qt. I have it installed on a Lenovo with Broadcom wireless and it worked out of the box. Simply install it over the ubuntu in the same partition -- just a suggestion.

Use 32-bit on that oldy but goodie!

welcome and best wishes!

[Padre King]

Did you boot into the live cd? It would have had an icon to install to disk, this would have asked you if you wanted to use the whole disk. As long as your laptop didn't have EUFI it would have loaded fine. Windows would have been gone and then all you would have to do is download the broadcom drivers and install them with the package manager. Or at least that is the way the CentOS6 and Stella CD's work. Had my Toshiba Satellite P755 running in about 10 minutes on wireless would have taken less time if I hadn't been doing other things on the system. Wired worked right off the DVD Live so internet access was easy. Good luck with Ubuntu. I didn't like it after it updated pc crawled and there was no exiting anything that opened.

[netwar]

I have the same wireless card in my acer aspire 5000 (its mentioned in my sig the really slow one lol) it was a bit of a pain to figure out what to download becuase the name had changed for the package by one letter since the last person had mentioned it. the machine sounds similar to my 2nd laptop, same cpu,wireless card,sound and ethernet. try installing lubuntu(the ubuntu with LXDE) 12.04 and do
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter
the install should be flawless