AlbertP wrote:I have no idea what wifi card you have so I can't tell you what OSes will work.
If Windows also has short battery life on your hardware, then it's usually a hardware problem such as an old battery.
Under Windows 7 Home Premium x64, I had at most 3 hours; under Linux Mint 10, 7.5 hours under identical load during the same period. Pretty significant difference. As I recall from my test of LM12, it was comparable to Windows 7, which was shocking, and
not a happy discovery. It is the reason I reverted to LM10, in fact.
WiFi is a Realtek RTL8192-VA2 (which I had trouble getting going in LM9 for some weird reason, as I recall;
see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=50416!), video is Intel-based, and likely baked onto the processor.
Excerpt from hardinfo, showing the video, audio and networking:
Code: Select all
VGA compatible controller : Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Audio device : Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
Ethernet controller : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
Network controller : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
I mean, I know without doubt that LM9, LM10 and LM12 all work on this hardware, but the question is, given the fact that I often run untethered to electric, which of the OS choices in the original post would fit the criteria I have. Since I do not know, I am asking advice from others who (likely) do know the answer.
[EDIT: Have upgraded for now to Mint 13 to do direct testing. MATE seems very Gnome2-ish, which is very nice, although had to work with something other than Compiz as the compositor. Thankfully, there was a tutorial on how to set xcompmgr up for LMDE/XFCE that also worked (with one slight change) in MATE right here.
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=84076]