My be your PC is too new?

I've had Gutsy installed on my Toshiba Satellite 1415 S173 and have not had any problems you've mentioned.

I also have an older Win-95 Toshiba that I may install Linux on next.

So, try it on older equipment that has been out awhile.

Randall,

I'm curious. I remember you commenting about your laptop hanging every time you closed the case. I don't remember the laptop you are using.

I am assuming you did a dual boot when you installed Ubuntu. For purposes of discussion, if you were willing to reformat the Linux partition and install from scratch, if Ubuntu 6.06, an earlier release than the one you installed, has the same problem when you close your laptop? I know going to an earlier release sounds stupid, but I was just wondering if something broke between 6.06 and 7.10.

Of course you may not want to waste the time, and I can completely understand that.

I had a few problems with Gutsy as well.
I had all but given up on Fedora since Fedora Core 4. I had nothing but troubles just trying to install, let alone run the later Fedora versions.
I gave Fedora Core 8 a go late last year and to my surprise, I found it to be easier to live with than Gutsy. Wifi on my IBM T43 worked off the bat (The First Linux OS I have ever managed to get wifi working, without rebuilding kernels, or other black magic. All the major drivers worked as well)

At the moment Im waiting for the General (Non Beta) Releases of Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9 before diving in again and testing the latest linux desktop releases.

I tried Kubuntu with KDE4, and had a couple of issues with display drivers reverting back to low res, making things a bit unworkable. But its still Beta days, and things did look promising !

I would recommend Linux Mint. It is based off Ubuntu and includes a lot of useful extras. Out of the box support for DVD playback, MP3s, flash, problematic WiFi cards, WMA and WMV. The updater also has a rating system that will let you know how likely an update is to break your system.

You might want to consider Mandriva and Xandros.

Consider yourself unattached. Play the field.

I'd suggest you give FreeBSD a try. I've had better luck with FreeBSD than Linux over the years, as far as hardware support. If you build everything from source using the ports tree, be advised it's going to take you a while to set up a functional workstation. It's not hard, but it is time consuming. Of course, you can just install binary packages and go, too. If you're really interested in *NIX, I think you'll prefer FreeBSD over Linux.

I think Mandriva with its Ia Ora theme is the prettiest and most polished distro of all, and supports most hardware out of the box. I also recommend Xandros; it instantly makes Windows users feel at home, and has great wallpapers.

Since Mac OS X is Unix underneath, you could just go with that. But the real question is why spend so much time fooling around with operating systems? It's easy to get caught up in that cycle - in the early days of home PCs, I played around with Commodore, TI, Atari, then MS-DOS. But I realized I was spending all my time exploring the OS and not doing any actual work! As an InfoWorld writer, that may be your job, of course, but the most important thing on the PC is the applications, not the OS. It used to be said that you should choose the app first, then buy the OS it runs on. That's still probably good advice today.

Well, I use Scientific Linux 5, a redistribution of Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 and it works quite well for me. No problems with power management and suspend/hibernate or with the wireless. Of course I have a somewhat older laptop (about 2 year old now - Dell Latitude D820 with Core Duo 2GHz CPU).

Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris

There's not enough info to give you really good advice, but I'd go with the wild card option for a while and test the very wide and deep waters.

Personally, I'm a Slacker, but you've got to be willing to configure some things yourself. Not everybody is up for that, but I don't mind a couple of days fine-tuning a system to get that fast, stable, Slackware feeling. And you learn about Linux that way. Slackware is also the oldest distro and is supposed to be the closest to Unix among the Linux distros, so those might be pluses for you.

If you want Slackware made easier, try Zenwalk, an excellent, intelligently done Slackware derivative. Same for Vector, which seems to have the edge in enthusiastic communities.

If you really want a Windows replacement (as in it does as much for you as it can) try PCLinuxOS. I've set it up for several newbies and they've liked it, but it can still do whatever any other Linux can do. It's also been called Mandriva done right.

Once you've tried those two (be a distro junkie for a while, it's cool). Try Elive. The Enlightenment desktop is off most people's radar, but man is Elive cool and pretty. It's also pretty stock Debian underneath (IIRC), so it's quick and has other Debian advantages.

My last recommendation is probably my best. If you want a better Ubuntu, try Mepis. It was Ubuntu (minus the fan boys & PR polish) before there was an Ubuntu, and I think it's still the distro to go to if you want a Linux-based OS but you're not into it to run it as a server, or to hang out in the community forums or to be a hobbyist endlessly tweaking your system (that'd be me). It's solid and down-to-business.

And by the way, I'd dispute your assertion that most people think of Ubuntu when they think Linux. Most people have no idea, and those who know more know there are hundreds of options, and Ubuntu is fairly late to the party. It's the middle group, the toe-in-the-waters crowd, that equates Ubuntu with Linux. Take the tour. Find out different.

Hardy will be an extremely strong release. Ubuntu releases *every* six months guaranteed like clockwork and it's a significant release. That's why I stick with it: I have faith in the development cycle. No other distro is as dedicated or has the resources: a combination of the strongest community plus the backing of a well organized corporation. I guess SUSE and Red Hat/Fedora are the closest competitors, but they sell a 'full' version while offering a lesser 'free' or 'community' version, while Ubuntu is committed to never charging for any version. So this month or next other distros may come out with a compelling OS that works a little better in some respects or looks nicer. But unless OS's are your main hobby or something, trying to follow the flavor of the month gets old fast. For just getting things done, Ubuntu seems to have achieved a magic balance between cutting-edge and stability. With Ubuntu I feel I can just use it without constantly distro-hopping and be assured that what I need is there or won't be lacking for long.

Fedora 9 is also due out at the end of April, and looks to be rather interesting. Ubuntu and Fedora (RedHat) have been my two defaults for some time as an enterprise admin / user.

I recommend Fedora, way too great for me than Ubuntu

If you use Solaris or OpenSolaris, you also want to visit www.blastwave.org. Blastwave has pre-built versions of most of the GNU tools and other popular software (e.g. gcc, mplayer) ready to install using an installer similar to Debian's apt. You can also order a DVD with the software if you link, or use one of the many mirrors to install from.

In a nutshell, it's GNOME, on a rock solid OS. (One could also make that statement about FreeBSD as well.)

The petals fell off Ubuntu after moving to Gutsy. What was a rock solid server would crash randomly with a load, without, every two minutes or every 5 days or so. I was not running X, just a very basic server with Apache, MySQL, IpTables and Postfix. I wasn't the only one to experience this, Ubuntu's forums are littered with similar experiences of users who moved to Gutsy.

My solution, was to revert to the Feisty kernel with seemed to solve my issues. The real downside to all this was Canonical did not respond to these problems in a way that instilled any confidence.

Is Canonical turning into Microsoft? That would be a shame.

"And with PC-BSD, it's also visually quite attractive."

Don't you mean rather that you like the look of the KDE desktop environment? After all you don't "see" the operating-system kernel; you see the desktop environment.

As an earlier poster said, if you want Unix why not use OS X? You won't find a more polished and usable desktop environment -- you won't even find anything close from that point of view. And yet you can just drop into Terminal and treat it like any other Unix machine. In fact, Leopard has been specifically gone over to get certification from the Open Group, which essentially involves making sure that every *nix utility on there works in the standard Unix way. They do that so that Unix scripts can be transportable. That's not even true in all details of FreeBSD, let alone Linux. (Come to think of it, it probably explains why Leopard does user-groups differently to Tiger. Tiger used to use private groups like a Linux distro, which I don't think is a traditional Unix thing.)

Anyway, failing that, if you liked the look of PC-BSD, I'd install something that uses KDE by default. If you were leaning towards Ubuntu, that means you might find you preferred Kubuntu -- that's the version of Ubuntu with KDE rather than the GNOME desktop. Or just install Ubuntu and the KDE desktop on top of it with aptitude.

Linux MINT is related to Ubuntu and is aimed at being more user friendly.

Pendrivelinux.com has loads of information and howtos for loading Linux on USB flash media for ultra portability. (Be sure to use the application Trucrypt to protect your personal data should you lose your USB Flash Key).

Mepis has worked for me when Ubuntu wouldn't. Updates are not as regulary, but that's fine with me when everything is working properly. I'd suggest Mepis if you like KDE. Linux Mint if you like Gnome. Both are similar to Ubuntu.

It's good to see a variety of distros being suggested here. I like Ubuntu, but I get a little tired of hearing so much about it when there's over 400 other distros to choose from. Here's my 2 cents worth, in my general order of preference:
*Simply MEPIS 6.5 - I've been running it on my HP laptop as well as several desktops since it was released without any issues to speak of. Version 7 is out now, but I haven't tried it yet.
*PC Linux OS - based on Mandriva, comes in three flavors depending on your type of computer.
*Debian - You can do the net install if you have broadband. You can choose the traditional Gnome install, or the KDE desktop, or you can start with a minimal install then pick and choose whatever you want from over 20K packages in the repos via the Aptitude installer. This takes a few days, but is well worth the effort and you will learn a LOT! I did this with Etch on an old Micron PII 300 laptop with 128Mb of ram that I use for special projects at work, and it's never failed me.
I suggest you try running a few different live distros just to get a taste of everything, then decide what you'd like to install. Head over to Distrowatch.com , and run through their search facility and see what you get.
Most of all, Have Fun with it!

I'm using Zenwalk on two 7 year old PCs (a desktop and a laptop).

It really flies and XFCE looks lovely. Not sure how suitable it would be for newer hardware though.

MEPIS

I, too played with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon for several months on my T43p. Also had power ACPI issues, and had the occasional browser hang.
I eventually discovered the hackintosh, which fit my new-OS-Jones-must-elevate-game vibe far better than Vista ever did.
I finally gave in and splurged on a new MacBook Pro 17"HD (the one with the super large screen 1920x1200). Wow. THIS was the OS experience I'd been hoping for with both Ubuntu and Vista, but didn't get.