thiussat

I disagree with Fedora. If you want a buggy OS, go for it, but there are better distros for "out of the box" support. I tried Fedora 9 and had nothing but problems and encountered constant bugs; but that's what you get when you install a Beta distro (Fedora is nothing but a Beta Red Hat).

PCLinuxOS has been the best for me (and I have tried all of the major distros). Everything worked: sound, video, wireless, out of the box - no tweaking was needed (except you must install proprietary drivers, but that is simple and takes all of 2 minutes with Synaptic). This ease of use, of course, will vary between hardware, but the distro is designed specifically for "out of the box" functionality. Fedora is, in no way, designed to just "work," and it makes no such claim.

Besides PCLOS, I think SuSE and Mandriva tie for second. But, then again, I happen to prefer RPM distros (because I know how to package RPM's). I tried Linux Mint (Ubuntu fork) and liked it quite a bit as well, but it's a Deb distro, which I don't prefer.

As for routers, you need to buy the Linksys WRT54GL (~$50). The firmware is essentially a micro Linux distro and open-source. Since the source is open, there are a lot of 3rd party firmware projects out there, which extend it's functionality -- DD-WRT and Tomato being the best ones, imo.

Melcar

Nearly everything in the Linux world is beta, so saying that you won't touch such software is rather silly. The "stable" Linux distros usually end up being too outdated. All of the popular distros have some "bleeding edge" factor to them, Fedora being one of the more aggressive ones, followed by the unstable branch of Debian. Of course, it depends on the individual; some people are fine with a stable but older distro builds for their simple desktop needs, while others preffer to toy around with more bleeding edge distros, and others a bit of both.

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loony

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i may try Fedora, ill see how it goes.

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2.53ghz--->

metala

Did you try to change stack size?
In Windows stacks are 12kb.
In Debian default size is 4kb. (Probably Ubuntu too)
In Linux kernel default size is 8kb stacks.
There is a kernel patch to increase them to 16kb. This is how I managed to run my Atheros based USB drive on my MTECH (in the profile) laptop. But after the patch you need to recompile your kernel.

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loony

I didnt even know about that. Is there a guide for it? I would like to get it to work on either Ubuntu or Mint.

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2.53ghz--->

metala

Here is the patch:
http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader...ds-patches.php
*Note that the patch is free & open but DriverLoader is neither free nor open. So the only thing you can get from there is the patch.

After that you have to download kernel source and patch it. About the patch I don't really remember. I think I changed the paths in the patch file. And used "patch -e < linux-2.6.18-16kstacks.patch" (or something like that)

Here is a site with nice tutorials (I wish I had known this when I was compiling my kernel) for Linux.
http://www.howtoforge.com/howtos/linux/kernel
*Search for How to compile kernel for your distribution
** Ubuntu is almost the same as Debian.

While configuring the kernel, the patch (after being applied) there should be setting for the 16Kstacks in the kernel hacking section. If there is 4kstacks, you should deselect it in order to use 16kstacks.

After that compile the kernel.
Next boot in the new kernel and install windows drivers of the NIC:
ndiswrapper -i .....


PS. I'm not sure if that would work in your case, but what I know is that is is not an easy job to do. I killed a day in trying to boot the new kernel and other tings (but I haven't had any tutorials, just some guidance from my brother)

Edit: To fix a mistake I did in the my first post - Windows doesn't have 12kb stack size, but some windows drivers require 12kb.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/kernelmustar.../30/12543.aspx
Here is some info about the topic.

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loony

Holy Moley the internet is working on Ubuntu!!! This is awesome!!! Thanks metala for getting me to try ubuntu again!!

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2.53ghz--->

loony

Okay my internet is working with Ndiswrapper now but its really really really slow! Any ideas?

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2.53ghz--->

mkdir

Why don't you get a fully supported card? It will solve all your problems.

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C'e solo l'Inter

loony

I fixed it. Im getting 700kbs downloads now

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2.53ghz--->