Welcome to the fantastic world of Linux

[ps2chiper]

I wanted to say that I have over a years worth of experience on Linux. If anyone has any problems they can contact me and I can guide them over skype and msn.

[Devilfish]

Thanks for offering your services m8, I'm sure there are loads of people who would like to try linux but don't have a clue where to start.

I have dual boot XP Pro and Ubuntu 7 - I use the linux for dreambox image stuff, that's all, everything else is on XP.

[caveman_nige]

doh DF, i have a triple boot system with XP, Vista and Ubuntu 8.10 .. Basically I stick with the XP as the Vista is arse and the ubuntu unly works with an ethernet cable and not wifi (well it did once).. Got Suse on servers and DSL on pen drives and Russix on CDs...

If it worked for me I would use it... Lets see what knowledge comes in this shiney new section, i will watch with interest.

[ps2chiper]

To make windows wifi drivers work in linux you need to use NDISWrapper

[Devilfish]

What if you only have linux and not a dual boot system?

How do you get the drivers to work then?

[ps2chiper]

You can plug in the ethernet cable then download the NDISwrapper and the windows drivers. then setup your wifi, then it should be all good.

[Devilfish]

So you still need to rely on windows to get the wireless working.

[ps2chiper]

Not the windows operating system. Ubuntu supports all the wired nics out of the box. and ubuntu supports alot of the wifi chips like atheros. so you dont need a windows computer.

[Mjolinor]

So you still need to rely on windows to get the wireless working.

Not if you buy the right stuff to begin with. NDIS wrapper should be absolutely a last resort, it isn't good but it is a lot more successful than running Linux drivers under Windo$e.

[ps2chiper]

You are right as a last resort. Ubuntu will run about 70% of wifi cards without any help. But for the people with obscure ones that arnt fully supported at least they will work with NDISwrapper.

[carrownisky]

Ubuntu 8.1 ran my old belkin usb wifi no trouble on an old desktop (just ubuntu OS) but I did have to arse about a bit to get it to run on a fairly new toshiba laptop - (dual booting with xp) seems to bear out what you say :-)

[ps2chiper]

What wifi card do you Have in your toshiba. In my toshiba, it has a atheros based card that works ok.

[Mjolinor]

The truth is that the newer the hardware the more difficult it is to get working. This is because it is all open source, free and that manufacturers often do not support it so reverse engineering is the only way to make it work, that takes a lot of time and effort.

Atheros is an exception, they fully support open source and have only kept back their source code for legal reasons to do with the FCC, this problem was recently overcome and they have released all of the source code for Atheros based cards.