[Gllug] Wireless and Linux

[lesleyb at herlug.org.uk]

On Sat, Aug 01, 2009 at 06:04:02PM +0100, John Hearns wrote:
> 2009/8/1 Johannes Lang <johannes.lang at btinternet.com>:
> >
> >
> > The WG111T USB network adapter uses an Atheros chipset I think. All the
> > web pages I have visited unfortunately tell you different things. One
> > says "no drivers exist" and others say "it depends how you configure
> > your system". Who would you believe.
> Again, why not save yourself time and effort and just buy an adapter
> which you know will work out of the box, without having to configure
> ndis-wrapper?
> 
> 
> > Please be patient with me, as I am a newbie at Linux. People say as a
> > newbie, you should use Ubuntu, but I prefer openSuse / SLED. Besides,
> > these disros use KDE and Konqueror rather than Gnome and Nautilus as the
> > file manager (I digress though).
> I'm sorry, but this is a canard. You can install both Gnome and KDE on
> any desktop Linux distribution. When installing SuSE you just click
> the boxes to install Gnome.
> I prefer Gnome, and I'm sitting in front of an OpenSUSE 11.1
> workstation right now, using Gnome.
> 
> Sorry to labour this point - but with Linux you get to choose. You can
> run a completely command-line system, with no windowing interface. You
> can run a lighweight X-windowing interface, such as fvwm. You can run
> Gnome and KDE - all installed on the same system. Indeed, even though
> I'm using Gnome I can run KDE applications on my desktop - all you
> need is the relevant libraries installed.
> 
Indeed, at last and all other such comments.  You can go even further.
Gnome and KDE provide Desktop Environments. Window Managers don't.
Examples of window managers available on Debian systems include wmii and 
fwm.  

Troll warning: Gnome/KDE flame wars do happen.  

> 
> My honest advice to you - get the OpenSUSE 11.1 installation DVD,
> either by downloading it on a Windows PC and burning a DVD, but post
> or by buying a Linux magazine.
> Install it on your laptop, and use a wired (Cat 5) ethernet connection
> to get started.
> Follow the HOWTOs on configuring ndis-wrapper for your wireless adapter,
> or just buy a different one.
I started on SuSE 7.something ... ages ago ... I like SuSE 
...  there was only dial-up then ... and winmodems ... I tried
compiling the stuff nite after nite and in the end I gave up looked at the 
hardware database and went out and bought a modem that worked with Linux.  
My stalling block was not knowing enough about how to compile properly
on a SuSE system.  There were constants needing definition and I struggled to
find out what the apropriate values were.  I suspect SuSE wasn't the most friendly
of distributions to learn to compile a kernel on.  

I should imagine ndiswrapper is a wrapper and doesn't need compiling in but my advice is 
to go buy a usb wireless stick that is known to work with Linux.  
It will work with your router. 

HTH 
L.
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