I've had this old notebook laying around and because i was missing a second machine (My wife usually steals the first ;) ) I considered installing Linux.

As a php developer I work with Linux servers (usually fedora) on a daily basis and because its an older machine that I want to use for development, linux seemed the best option. Speedwise I expected a good experience, better than Windows 7 on the same machine.

The results where terrible. I tried ubuntu 12.04. The shell never got past showing the background. The system doesn't freeze since the mouse still works and I can use ctrl+alt+f2 etc to enter terminal mode. I expected hardware problems en even exchanged the harddisk en Ram memory. No luck though, so I started over and tried 11.10 Same results so I tried 10.04.4 which did install properly. Not sure if unity was the problem, but it seems likely.

But then I tried simply things like surfing on the net, the system frooze and I thought it crashed so after a few minutes I pulled the plug and rebooted. But it happened again and I waited. After a few minutes the system came back to life like nothing happened.

Long story short. Besides the fact that the entire interface is very sluggish, any and all graphical functions freezes the system. The more elaborate the animation would be, the longer it freezes. I switch chromium from window to fullscreenmode and had to wait 15 minutes to continue. I don't see the animation that's probably supposed to be in between. It just freezes and then after unfreezing its fullscreen.

I don't think its a bug. I suspect the problem is with my graphics card. Like I said, its and old system. So old that I can't even find the original Ati drivers anywere. (I'll post the details of my system at the end of my post)

I'm at a loss as to what to do next. I tried other Distro's. So far only dreamlinux works normally. Linux Mint won't start as a live CD.

I think I simply need a driver update but I can't find them anywhere.

Does anyone have the same experience ? Maybe even someone who has or had the same notebook running Ubuntu at some point ?

Anyway, here are the specs:

http://www.nec-driver.com/nec-driver/NEC-Versa-P550---FP550-Driver_421.html