What flavor linux for pennable notebook?

DavePhipps

I have an HP 2710p convertible notebook with a built-in Wacom digitizer. I got it without an OS but put the Windows 8 preview on it and it's pretty good. I'm running Sketchbook Pro and Wings 3d on it and performance is OK, but not great. I'm now looking for a Linux distro to install on it and have been wondering which ones have the best Wacom support for a Tablet PC? Does anyone here have any experience in this area?

mike670

You could check out this distro, ArtistX http://www.artistx.org/site3/

I haven't tried it my self but might be what your looking for in there.

For a more minimal distro, I have used Xubuntu with a wacom bamboo before, works fine.

To get your setup working if it doesn't work out of the box, this might help http://www.cogitationblog.com/journals/portege-m200/28-m200-wacom-tablet-under-linux

oXYnary

Linux tablet drivers come from one major source. If a distro changes anything on it, its to make it fit into its flavor more, but then you loose the ability to easily upgrade to the latest version of the generic driver without adding third party sources. So I wouldn't worry so much which distro has the best drivers.

I would suggest Linux Mint. Its a Modded version of Ubuntu with a different Desktop. But with all the underlying Ubuntu libraries. Which means it should also in theory be compatible without much fuss when Valve comes out with the Steam Linux Client.

http://linuxmint.com/

DavePhipps

Thanks for the suggestion guys. I'm downloading Xubuntu and mint for some test drives. I'm loving this old laptop it's great as a portable digital sketchpad, but it's not a powerhouse so hopefully Linux will help with some of the resource issues.

gray

oXYnary gives some good advice. ubuntu and mint are the most popular distributions at the moment for general users. but most of the larger film studios use linux and they use distributions based on Red Hat linux, Red hat linux is the largest linux company in the world and they employ the most developers. the main distribution is not available for free in binary but they do offer a free distribution called fedora. and there are other distributions that compile redhats free code base and offer distros for free download

a number of studios use centos, and the secont most popular redhad distro is scientific linux. that is the distribution maintained by CERN. they run the large hadron collider on scientific so i guess you can guess is is extremely reliable and mature.

as oXYnar says they all get there wacom drivers from the same source. but redhat linux has the bonus that programs like maya, mudbox, mari, nuke, vray are tested and certified on redhat and fedora. so if you want to mimic a system from those studios i would try centos fedora or scientific. you can be fairly certain that you will have no problems with professional 3d apps on those distributions.

also if you are looking for an app for sketching then try http://www.krita.org/

DavePhipps

ISO's have been burned and multiple installs later, there is so far no linux winner. I'm looking for a good Out Of Box experience and so far Windows 8 has been the best. I'm installing Fedora now so I'm hoping that will be what I'm looking for. Oddly enough Windows 8 was using less CPU and memory than all the linux installs that I tried .

WAIT!!! Fedora is installed, and resource consumption is lower than everything yet. I'll report back after testing graphical apps and wacom devices.

gray

DavePhipps wrote: »

I'm looking for a good Out Of Box experience and so far Windows 8 has been the best. I'm installing Fedora now so I'm hoping that will be what I'm looking for. Oddly enough Windows 8 was using less CPU and memory than all the linux installs that I tried .

sorry i think all those distros recommendations are sort of the main desktop distros so the resource usage out of the box will be not much different from windows.

the thing about linux is that you can run a desktop on an old 486 with 64mb of ram. so it definitely can go much lower in resource usage then windows. but you will either have to get one of the distros specifically configured for smaller systems. or do some tweaking and change the desktop manager.

before you make your choice i would try a few of the lite distros. you should see much lower resource useage out of the box.

damn small linux, puppy linux and crunch bang are all lightweight distros. if your just sketching on a smaller system those will bring down the resource use substantially.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/8-of-the-best-tiny-linux-distros-683552

DavePhipps

Actually Fedora is doing great so far. I did find that mypaint is closer to the sketching app that I'm looking for though. I'll give an update after I get things set up more.

gray

fedora is generally what i have used on my workstation. good support and development, drivers etc. you can try xfce desktop manager if you want to take down resource usage . but its not as flashy.

the developer of my paint is a really good guy and has developed a top notch brush engine.

oXYnary

As said you will only get that streamlining your looking for with a lighter desktop like XFCE. I have only used fedora/redhat on occasion. So I cant give much input on it other than to say I love Debians package manager, and have heard both good and bad things about RPM (redhats manager). Ubuntu and Mint use Debian as the core they build off of.

DavePhipps

I'm old school so XFCE is looking good to me. I hate my desktop interface looking like a smartphone. After trying multiple paint programs I'm now back to GIMP. MyPaint is good but it just doesn't feel right, and Krita lags massively if I use a large brush. I'm going to work with MyPaint more because it looks like once I get used to it I'll be happier, but there are a lot more tools in GIMP.
The next thing I'll need to work on is pen calibration. The control panel applet for Wacom calibration doesn't seem to be working and as I move the pen to the bottomof the screen the cursor drifts away from the nib.