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I bought a sony vaio vgn-p19wn in June, and every OS it has had runs like a dog on it, so far Windows Vista and Xubuntu 9. Does anyone know of an OS that runs acceptably on this machine?

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closed as not constructive by quack quixote Apr 12 '10 at 2:13

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I hear FreeDOS is nice and responsive.

In all seriousness: you're going to need to lay down some specific requirements of what you want your OS to do, hardware specifications, and the like. You may also wish to include what you have done to try to speed up the machine, in terms of upgrades.

I understand it's a laptop so your options will be limited.

If you've run Xubuntu on it and it's slow, there may be no hope for your expectations. I run Xubuntu 9.10 on a ThinkPad A22m (P3-850, 512MB of RAM) and it's quite responsive and reasonably snippy, but I wouldn't expect to compile OpenOffice.org in under 3 days. Then again I don't install Flash on my machines.

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I guess a Linux based OS would be perfect as I can run Erlang and emacs. I don't need a GUI, but I do need the wireless networking to work (works in Xubuntu). Or is their a way to start Linux with only a command line? – Zubair Feb 11 '10 at 18:39
Ubuntu is really focused on the GUI but it's possible not to start X or use a GUI. A server install will allow you to choose whether to install X, although you might get some weird comments by installing Ubuntu Server on a laptop. – Broam Feb 11 '10 at 21:28
Is there any Linux which allows wireless networking and a non GUI install and is good at it, as it seems like maybe Ubuntu is not a good fit then? – Zubair Feb 13 '10 at 13:06
Most linux will allow wireless networking. wicd is probably the best choice for wireless networking control from the console as it has a ncurses frontend. Slackware can be set up to not install X quite easily, however it's more configuration than Ubuntu. – Broam Feb 14 '10 at 16:43
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