Caution: Rant
After unwrapping our new laptop (yay!), me and my fiancee decided to make Linux co-exist with Vista, turns out to be much easier said than done...After reading through Astro's guide in this forum I used the Vista partition manager (which s very good I must say) to make me a Linux partition and swap partition, which went a bit haywire at first since this lappy was already using a partition as backup for Vista as well, and I wanted to use another partition to store files on so both Vista and Linux could access them...
Having done that, we decided to go for Kubuntu 8.04 KDE4, all goes well until the LiveCD goes into graphical mode where I'm missing half my desktop, and with no way of making Kubuntu realise that 1280x800 is a valid resolution lolz, throw in some Wi-Fi woes and no way of getting the right drivers in place, we decided to go back to Ubuntu 8.04, with which we were a bit more familiar...(there was also a brief venture into Sabayon, which blatantly refused to boot into the LiveDVD, even though it had done it on my desktop before, and ended up on a command line where all I could muster doing was sudo reboot the bloody thing!)
Now successfully seeing Ubuntu in the correct resolution, there is no way of getting the Wireless LAN to work, where the help page gives me loads of command line stuff, but no real solution apart from getting some NDIS wrapper thing to use the Vista drivers in Linux, which I had to go and fnd first as well...Having downloaded the Ubuntu ndisgtk package (in Vista!) and armed with the right drivers, I shall try and see if this will finally work tomorrow...Ubuntu didn't "just work" for me, but I'm too stubborn to give up now!
It's just quite frustrating as the internet should have the main focus on it, with all the other drivers being downloadable from there, but if you can't get online in the first place, how are you supposed to get packages for wireless LAN stuff??? Not very thought out there, it could/should have been bundled with Ubuntu from the start IMO.
Uh... are you asking a question about your wireless or just ranting?
both, if you have an easier solution for me please feel free to share :)
ndiswrapper is working better with xp/2000 drivers, and remember you'll have to use wpa_supplicant to get a working wpa encrypted connection
however I'd advise you to use Linux drivers if possible, so what kind of wireless card do you have, maybe you can post the output of 'lspci'?
let me know what exactly your problem is and we'll hopefully get you up and running :)
ah good, Ray is here. I was just about to draw a cowboy hat on the bat signal and beam it into the nightsky :D
@negsun.... apart from curiousity, is there any practical reason you're deploying linux on the brand new lappie.... if something went wrong and there were warranty issues, you'd hate it to be because you got curious about goodOle open source on your expensive new machine :D I do mention such caveats in the dualboot guide.
anyway, did you check the wNIC manufacturer site for any linux drivers ??
plus mobile GPU support is scant as it is in xp/vista, with driver revisions ticking over way too slowly, if at all. So don't get too upset if the mobile GPU isnt playing along with Linux.
Linux tinkering can be fun, but for pete's sake, keep it on a tried/tested/used/abused rig, not your shiny new lappie... If I was you, I'd have setup a brown wallpaper on vista, installed open office and told her it was ubuntu :D and yes, girls really dont care about that stuff.... take her to a nice dinner instead....
mtfbwya
Well you make a good point Astro, but I found the partition manager in Vista so damn easy to use it was hard to resist...And apart from the WLAN driver issue, I have no other issues with Linux atm, it co-exists happily with Vista :)
however I'd advise you to use Linux drivers if possible, so what kind of wireless card do you have, maybe you can post the output of 'lspci'?
It would be handy if I knew what that meant lolz
My network card on this laptop is:
- Network Card: Marvell Libertas 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Client Adapter
That's all the info I can find about it in Windows or even PC Wizard...
I managed to find some sort of driver on the Marvell site for linux 2.4.2 kernels or newer, so maybe that'll work...I'll let you know if it does lolz
It would be handy if I knew what that meant lolz:D
Type lspci in a console window, it will give you a nice list of your system's PCI devices.
Alternatively, install (if it's not been installed already) the hardinfo package (
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardInfo), which will comfort you with a nice GUI and export to plain or HTML text. Of course you could shoot the screen as well. :)
Thanks Ray, I've tried to look for such an app and Ubuntu is supposed to have a program called "Device Manager" on it under "System", but mine doesn't...So I'll try that out the next time I'm in Ubuntu...the pain is that I can't install packages from Ubuntu that way I've always got to get it in Vista, reboot into Ubuntu, get p***ed off cause it doesn't work, boot back into Vista, etc...
But I'll post that for you later and see if you can figure it out :)
.So I'll try that out the next time I'm in Ubuntu...the pain is that I can't install packages from Ubuntu that way I've always got to get it in Vista, reboot into Ubuntu, get p***ed off cause it doesn't work, boot back into Vista, etc...go cable XD lol
Don't tempt me...I've decided to drop Linux for the laptop and focus more on the desktop as I know my hardware worked fine there using Wubi and VirtualBox...Just hope I can restore the lappie to what it once was :-S
It's just bugging the living sh** out of me as everytime I need to get a program even just one like HardInfo it tells me dependencies aren't being met and I need this or that program, and then that one needs another one etc etc...I mean wtf did they bundle with Ubuntu to get you online wirelessly???
I'd gone cable, it's creepy to manually download packages to install them. At least that's what a package management is for. :)
However, I'm using Debian not Ubuntu, and intel's new wifi kernel driver for my ipw3945 (which is now in the stock Kernel anyway). Then I have a Belkin Wireless PCMCIA running with NDISWrapper, and a Fritz! WLAN USB Stick running on its Linux driver, but NDISWrapper works as well.
What I never got working is Ralink based cards on 64Bit Linux, while the same card works on 32Bit.
Don't tempt me...I've decided to drop Linux for the laptop and focus more on the desktop as I know my hardware worked fine there using Wubi and VirtualBox...
ah, reason prevails :) Yep, a desktop is the right place for what is essentially an experiement. NBs are delicate things, especially ones that are still under warranty :)
you should be able to simply nuke the Linux partitions from Vistas disk management GUI:
R click 'Computer'>Manage>Disk management.
Then delete the Linux entry from easyBCD. Its how I got rid of my 2 linux installs(mint and ubuntu) Mind you, I was using vistas bootloader, not GRUB, if you are using GRUB, you should reinstate Vistas bootloader first(via easy BCD>then reboot to check!) first before nuking the linux partitions, otherwise things may get messy for you ;)
mtfbwya
ah, reason prevails :) Yep, a desktop is the right place for what is essentially an experiement. NBs are delicate things, especially ones that are still under warranty :)
you should be able to simply nuke the Linux partitions from Vistas disk management GUI:
R click 'Computer'>Manage>Disk management.
Then delete the Linux entry from easyBCD. Its how I got rid of my 2 linux installs(mint and ubuntu) Mind you, I was using vistas bootloader, not GRUB, if you are using GRUB, you should reinstate Vistas bootloader first(via easy BCD>then reboot to check!) first before nuking the linux partitions, otherwise things may get messy for you ;)
Funny you should say that, since I had nuked a Kununtu install after re-instating the Vista MBR, but then later I nuked a Mint install with the GRUB bootloader still intact...After a few moments of "ZOMG WTF HAVE I DONE?????" I re-installed Mint to the same partition so GRUB would let me boot back into Vista so I could re-instate the Vista MBR...Talk about finding that out the hard way lolz.
...Talk about finding that out the hard way lolz. Its the best way to learn... seriously :) and that doesnt just apply to compies and tech [/sage wisdom]
mtfbwya