Problems using Wifi with Linux` HELP!!! Any Linux users know how?

[Funky Feathers]

Any Linux users/geniuses out there who can tell me how to connect to public Wifi in town with my Wifi Card, driver disk (useless) and Linux? My brother said Linux already has the drivers for it, but I am still not getting on, booting from the Wifi Card. Help!!! Before I go insane!

 

[Boyd]

ok, which OS and whats the hardware.

 

[Funky Feathers]

OK, I'm using Ubuntu Linux Karmic Koala, my browser is MozillaFirefox, and My Laptop is a fairly new (bought June '09) HP G60-231WM, do you need the product # or serial #? I completely uninstalled Windows Vista and my brother installed Linux in May. I bought my Wifi Card on eBay (from China), it is a USB 54M IEEE 802.11 b/g. It is supposed to be compatible with Linux. My brother said I wouldn't need to install the driver software, as Linux has that built in. But for some reason I cannot get a connection anywhere in town. My computer recognizes the card but can't get a signal.

 

[WalkingWolf]

SimplyMepis and Antix are both very easy to set up wireless, the latter is much simpler. I had problems with Ubuntu because ndiswrapper is not loaded and you have to be on line to load it, and you can't do that without it. Not sure what the folks at Ubuntu were thinking.

What you want to do is remove all the pre installed drivers on linux, and then load the driver for your hardware and then use ndiswrapper. On Simplymepis you usually have to blacklist a file I think it is BCM43XX.

 

[Funky Feathers]

Aack! Too technical for me. I have ndiswrapper installed, but don't know how to pull it out & use it, even online. I don't know how to uninstall the other drivers. I'm a computer dork, not geek. I have the book "Linux for Dummies", but I don't like to read. Apparently the driver software for my Wifi card only works in windows. I'm thinking of packing all this up (computer & all accessories) and shipping it to my Linux-genius brother.

 

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
Ubuntu should have a wiki where you can get specific instructions for Ubuntu, but you must get online... LOL Honestly if you are not that familiar with the tech end of Linux you should check out Antix Linux. It is very simple to set up wireless with that distro. I do not know why any of the distros preload drivers because they never ever match, and you will have to remove them. I have only had one wireless card that worked out of the box with linux and it was very old hardware.

There is a reason for this confusion, MS contracts with suppliers of certain hardware and agrees to preload the correct drivers into OS. But part of that contract is to keep working drivers from competing OS. This is much of the problems with sites like netflix that are restrictive to instant play to only MS OS that require registration.

Most of my laptops are dual boot, only because for certain applications I have to have windows, BUT on a couple computers I am actually using windows 2000 because it is smaller, and FASTER(cause it is smaller). I do run into some of the same problems that Linux users do because 2000 is out of copyright and can be had for free, and just like Linux used on as many machines as you like. Smaller OS tend to run faster unless you have a huge amount of RAM, and can load all the OS into RAM. This is one reason that Antix Linux works so well is it's smaller size. If you can get Antix and try get it, you will be happy you did.

 

[Funky Feathers]

Is Antix another version of Linux, like Kermic, Lucid, Jaunty, etc? Is it older or newer than Karmic? Where can I get it? Just Google & download? Or do I need the disk?

 

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
Antix is recent and the folks at SimplyMepis are behind it. It is designed for ease of use, smaller memory, and older machines but works exceptionally well on newer machines. Can you say fast as lightning. Yes it is a version of Linux, and you can download it, just google Antix Linux. I prefer version 8.0 to the newer 8.5. Make sure you load the full version also the smaller will work but be missing a lot of apps. the full I think is around 480 megabytes and the small somewhere in the 200 range.

 

[Funky Feathers]

Update- well, I gave up on it so "Dennis" (my laptop) is off the see the wizard (my bro). I sent him Priority Mail (insured for $800), w/delivery confirmation. Wish me luck that he gets to the land of OZ in one piece and the wizard can fix him. I was also having a problem with lines going thru all the text and images. Anyone dealt with that before?