A series of laptop problems... linux fixed it? disk activity 100% Hard drive issue? Should I stay with Linux?

Question

Okay, I really don't know where to start or end BUT I had disk activity issues.. on my previous question I had an ASUS laptop. I installed Windows 7, went back to Windows 8, and all this crazy hard drive configuration **** that didn't do zip, but I just installed a Slaxware and configured the entire system. Now it WORKS.I couldn't even get the thing to boot into safe mode before (for Windows 7 & 8) cause the thing lagged so much! I don't get it. It kept spiking to 100% Active Time and I could not alter or click anything at all.

Now, I've noticed that slackware is... kinda limited or I'm just not used to actually using it.
And then there's Ubuntu which seems to have a wider of variety of things that I could do as opposed to Slackware.. But now I don't know if it's the hard drive of my laptop that has an issue now if my laptop runs totally fine now. It's just.. different. I called ASUS up, I had already sent it back from New Hampshire ALL the way to California to have it looked at, but they didn't fix anything, it would take about three weeks and my warrant for this laptop to be replaced. I WAS thinking about trying to re-install Windows back since it seems to be running fine - so far on Slackware OS.

Best Buy and Staples tried, but they didn't do anything. Using an external hard drive did nothing.. seeing how nothing would load up.. I'm unsure of what to do, but if Linux works, I might keep with it. It seems pretty cool, but different. Should I go from Slackware to Ubuntu or Slackware to Windows? Or leave it as is?

Answer 1

First off: Linux is different because it is different. It looks and works differently. It will take some time to get used to. That's just how things are when they change. And going to Linux from Windows is a big change.



Having said that; you can keep Linux, or you can do a total disk wipe and re-instal Windows. Either way will solve your problems. But, if you go back to Windows, you will have to figure out how to keep the same problem from coming back again.



What happened is that you had too many processes running. Probably from ad-ware and other sources.

Answer 2

Slackware is not limited, but you might now know how to do the things you want to do. Ubuntu is far more limited in comparison.



If you want to learn linux, stick with Slackware. It is far more versatile and configurable than Ubuntu. There are some excellent Slackware forums that can help you get going. Start with www.linuxquestions.org, and go to the Slackware forums.

Answer 3

I dont know what kind of laptop you have, but your boot table somehow got messed up, its pretty obvious.



This was an old problem, starting back to Ubuntu 7.11, where Linux wanted the first lines of the boot sector and so did MS, MS won.



Long story short, your best bet is to simply do a clean factory restore and start over.

Installing windows 7, then windows 8 on top of that was the problem, I dont remember perfectly but I think there is a way to install windows 8 first then windows 7, not the other way around.



Use seprate partitions for Linux.



The most popular way to run Linux is through a USB Flash drive or VirtualBoX software.

Answer 4

You should use Ubuntu or another newbie-friendly distribution.



Ubuntu

Official technical support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community



Linux Mint

Installation and User Guide: http://www.linuxmint.com/documentation/user-guide/italian_13.0.pdf

Mint official technical support: http://forums.linuxmint.com



openSUSE

Installation: http://it.opensuse.org/Portal:Installazione

User guide: http://opensuse-guide.org/

Official technical support: http://it.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Communication_channels