I have a turion 64x2 and i have install several version of linux 64 and 32 bit all have
problems running blender 2.49a it is runs really slow crashes often or you select
options to change them or type anything in the selection boxes.
I currently am using Mint 9 32bit is there any solutions
Step 1: Do some research into the problem (eg. terminal output when Blender crashes) before calling Blender “crap”. It’s probably not Blenders fault, but is more likely the fault of your hardware + drivers.
Step 2: Find the correct forum to post this in. (The Support category would make sense, maybe in ‘Basic and Interface’?)
Step 3: Describe the problem in detail.
Copy and paste the terminal output (from step 1) into your post and describe the exact actions you made.
Say exactly what happens, (does Blender crash or does it just run slowly? is it just Blender that is affected?)
Tell us your exact hardware config (which CPU, graphics card, how much RAM, etc.) and whether or not you have any desktop effects enabled (Compiz) because they don’t mix nicely with Blender on lower-end hardware.
Tell us how you installed Blender (from the repos? from the Blender website? a build of Graphicall?).
Step 4: Post a single thread (rather than 2). if you need to add anything to the post press the little ‘Edit’ button.
If you’re not sure how to do any of that, just ask 
sounds to me like graphics card drivers. are you installing graphics drivers on any of these linuxes?
p.s. moved
Graphics cards can cause issues indeed. Does your laptop have an integrated graphics card? That along with other issues in your system could cause anything graphics-intensive to come to a crawl.
I stopped using Mint and started to use Ubuntu after Ubuntu 9 came out. Now I’m using version 10. Blender works great for me on two different computers with Ubuntu 10.
Sorry if the stuff below is too basic for you. It might help some Linux users though.
You can try out Blender on Ubuntu without changing your hard drive by using the Ubuntu installation cd as a live cd. You can boot up Ubuntu with the live cd and then install Blender. This will only install Blender in your RAM even though it might seem like it’s changing your hard drive. (In fact, you can do this with a lot of other Linux distros.)
Ubuntu can install Blender for you (just open up the Synaptic Package Manager, search for Blender, and mark it for installation.)
I’m very happy with the ability of Ubuntu 10 to correctly install my sound and video drivers too.
Always the same problems with people using Radeon and AMD.
They said everything is crap but never think about what is the real crap.