[Tfug] Need help finding a distro

[earljviolet at deserthowler.com]

I work at World Care checking out III computers for the store.  We sold
some computers with Ubuntu 7.10 installed.  Things were working fine.  The
7.10 repositories are now closed.

I went to Ubuntu 8.04 because it is LTS.  It worked great.  I set up a few
with a Cisco Wireless card and they worked fine too.  These machines are
PIII 800+ with 385 MB memory.

In going to 8.04 we encountered a problem.  Plugging a different monitor
brings the video down.  Not just to 800x600 but to totally unusable.  OK,
switch to a console and run 'sudo dpkg -reconfigure -phigh xserver -xorg';
that always works.  Then run sudo startx.  Good looking desktop but it
doesn't work.  Gasp!!  Reboot.

Go to recovery mode in Grub.  Run XFIX.  Same messed up screen ... go to
console but keyboard is dead.  Can't shutdown.  Pull plug.

Restart and can get into root in recovery mode.  Use Ubuntu 8.04 Live CD. 
Check xorg.config on live cd and open xorg.config on hard drive.  They are
the same.

Decide that this isn't a workable situation for computers for the public. 
Most people want some kind of desk top.

Ubuntu 9.04 gives the same problem.

Does anyone know of a distro we can use that will work for the general
public and not have this problem?

Earl