Ubuntu is not always compatible, how to check if it is?

[RikTelner]

Hey, sorry for bothering again.

Couple years ago, when Linux was for me even newer world than it is now (not that I know anything practical about Linux) I installed Linux Ubuntu on a DVD. And tried to boot it up on my computer. So booted it up, purple background appeared, with Ubuntu's logo and lowercase "ubuntu" with 5 dots showing that it's loading. It restarted and all highlight was gone. What I mean is, the content was on the screen, but the flash, the light that is on screen, didn't "boot" up. I could hardly read what was on screen.

I am planning to order a laptop, but it has no operation system, I won't bump any single buck for NSA spy on my PC. So I thought, maybe I could burn Linux Ubuntu on DVD and install it on the "empty" laptop and start Linux Arch from there. But what if something goes wrong? What if screen won't work? What if keyboard won't work. Then I'll be left with pretty powerful laptop, without operating system, which is useless. Are there any drivers that I could burn next to .iso file, to ensure that everything will work?

[LaxLoafer]

It's usually a good idea to check a distro's Hardware Compatibility List before installing Linux to see which devices are supported. Something you may want to do before ordering your laptop.

For Ubuntu the information you need is possibly found in their forums.

As a general rule though, the more popular your hardware is the more likely it is to be supported. Newer laptop models seem to be fairly well supported, especially those from big brand names.

Ubuntu has one of the largest community of users for a distro, so should anything go awry with your install, someone else may already have found a solution. Give it a shot!

[rubberman]

Check out www.zareason.com - great gear, great people, and really good prices (they are located in Berkeley California). I think they can ship internationally to some countries, but you need to check with them first. Everything they sell comes with Linux pre-installed, and all the hardware works. You can also get most of their stuff with BSD Unix as well, or no OS at all. They know how to deal with all that UEFI cruft, so you don't have to... :-)

[mike_2000_17]

System76 is another well-known company that sells computers with Linux pre-installed.

Burning the image to a DVD is not a particularly good option, in my opinion. Booting up from a DVD is very slow. You should put it on a USB stick instead. This is going to be faster when loading and running the live OS, and you get the benefit of being able to install things onto it, add things to it, and save your settings. For example, if you need to install a proprietary graphics driver to run properly on the system, you'll be able to do so if you run it from a USB stick. Or, if you anticipate having to install anything special, you can put the packages (deb files) onto the USB stick ahead of time.

As far as the fear that Ubuntu simply won't work on your laptop, I think that this is very unlikely. I've never seen Ubuntu completely not work on a computer. There can be some problems, especially with graphics drivers, but the worst you can get is that it is sluggish and slow, but it works enough to allow you to make the necessary corrections (configs, driver installations, etc.) to get it to work perfectly. We've discussed compatibility issues at great length already in other threads, so I won't delve into that further here.

What I mean is, the content was on the screen, but the flash, the light that is on screen, didn't "boot" up.

It could be that it is just too slow to work. As I said, running from a DVD is very slow, try a USB stick. Otherwise, it sounds like a graphics driver problem. If it is completely unusable, then try to boot into the terminal from your live USB stick, and then install the additional drivers from the terminal. What graphics card do you have on that computer?

[RikTelner]

The computer I booted Ubuntu from then is: Mobile Intel (R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family.
Future computer that I plan to buy, that is without OS yet: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M

Well, I've seen Mr. Torvalds saying "F--k you" to NVIDIA. He also mentioned they had most problems with their GPUs.

[iamthwee]

I did a quick google
http://askubuntu.com/questions/351404/nvidia-gtx-765m-with-optimus-unclamed

I'd expect some issues but nothing that can't be sorted. It may just take some time and experimentation with the terminal.

[RikTelner]

Ok, but, well, is it possible to start terminal from Ubuntu CD? The HDD/SSD will be totally empty.

[mike_2000_17]

Yes, like the link I already gave tells you:

"The standard way is to hold down (or repeatedly tap) the Shift key while you boot. Grub should present you with a menu. Choose the second option, to go into recovery mode; then choose, Drop to root shell prompt."

[RikTelner]

Check out www.zareason.com - great gear, great people, and really good prices (they are located in Berkeley California).

"Really good prices". You may "retract your statement". 4GB RAM, i3, 500GB HDD. 1,438 euro. I know you guys are really rich, but, uhm, I am student and even then I already sought on websites where I could buy pretty greater laptops for same price.

Yes, like the link I already gave tells you:

Oh, sorry, I didn't like really registered they are links (yes, I know they're blue and underlined, but my brain just registered as casual text).

[l3the]

i also couldn't run broadcom wifi adaptor. it must be fixed

[dave.mcdonald.18]

I decided to run an older laptop with a unix flavor. I tried Ubuntu 14.04 and had issues with my broadcom 4318 adapter also. After about 2 weeks I scrapped Ubuntu and went with Mint. I had the same issue with having to cut the firmware for the wifi card but the mint OS and communityseemed easier to navigate.
It works great now and MUCH faster than the XP that it had originally.

As for how to load it, Yes a USB stick "might" be a little faster but I burned the images for each OS on to a dvd and they worked fantastic. Plus you can run the OS right off the disk and try it for compatibility before going through the motions of an install.
One tip that I found sped things up. Connect to a wired network when you do the install and have it update on install, it will save a lot of time later.