OT: Windows is too expensive

[Fyron]

For software installation, just use Synaptics. Its often as easy as Windows, cause you can get almost all software you'd need in one integrated package management application.

Network configuration is loads of fun...

[Baron Munchausen]

That has been the standing complaint about Linux, recognized even by the geeks who are boosting it, for some years now. Linux is still not being adopted, despite being better at nearly everything. Linux has native security and has had for years. Windows is still a bug-riddled trojan that lets all the organized crime syndicates who have now entered into cyber crime do whatever they please with your machine. Apache on Linux is vastly more secure and more stable as a web server than Windows and IIS, and it can carry a much heavier load on the same hardware. Open Office has almost every single feature that MS Office has, and it is more backwards compatible than Office itself -- yes, a third party program is better at loading old Word or Excel files than brand-name MS Office! Games is where Windows still has the undisputed advantage. Everyone has gotten used to using Direct-X and it's hard to make the effort to independently learn how to program graphical hardware. But because it's still so hard to use -- the learning curve is just too steep for anyone but a tech geek -- almost no but but the geeks are using it. So it remains a niche product or a server OS at best while Windows continues to rule the desktop.

[Will]

For getting the wireless adapter to work, your best bet is probably to do a walkthrough on installing ndiswrapper, and wrapping the windows driver that came with the wireless card. There are a few wireless devices that are part of the kernel that will Just Work, but for the most part you need to get the Windows driver loaded into Linux.

[geoschmo]

Will said:
For getting the wireless adapter to work, your best bet is probably to do a walkthrough on installing ndiswrapper, and wrapping the windows driver that came with the wireless card. There are a few wireless devices that are part of the kernel that will Just Work, but for the most part you need to get the Windows driver loaded into Linux.

That sounds exactly like what I did, but it doesn't seem to see the adapter. I installed the driver, but I don't see where to go to get it to connect to my wireless network.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Market forces. If Linux becomes easier to use, more people will use it.

[parabolize]

Wireless is a pain in the butt with any OS besides windows. Don't jump on ndiswrapper right away; I have seen wireless cards not show up because /etc/network/interfaces has a typo or doesn't have wep set or the module hasn't been added to the repositories. With that said whats the hardware? This will display all your "pci" devices (actually a lot more but...):
Code:

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lspci -v | less

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If its usb:
Code:

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lsusb -v | less

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It would help if you would post your /etc/network/interfaces and what you have done.

[geoschmo]

parabolize said:
With that said whats the hardware?

It's a Trendnet TEW424UB v2.0 which according to everything I've read is not supported natively by Ubuntu. That seems to be confirmed by the fact that when I plug it in it doesn't "just work". According to the info I could find it uses a driver sis163u.inf driver. I loaded that driver using the GUI driver interface thingy and it seems to work there, but it doesn't appear to find the hardware. I did notive when I do the command "ndiswrapper -l" it shows the driver as loaded but out to the right says "invalid driver!" so maybe I've got the wrong one somehow.

I'll play with it some more tonight and try your commands para.

On the bright side I have managed to load the flash and adobe plugins for firefox so at least browsing seems to work pretty well at this point. Using an ethernet cable was totally painless. Didn't have to do anything at all to get it to work except plug the cable into the NIC port. I'd just like to move off the floor next to my router and on to the desk, so I'd like to get that wireless working.

Anybody have any experience getting VNC to work? I want to load VNC server on the Ubuntu pc and use my windows laptop with the vnc client to control it. That should work, right? Or do I have to have the same OS on both machines to use VNC?

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

You can use VNC across OSes.

[parabolize]

Nevermind

[geoschmo]

How do I tell what version of ndiswrapper I have? This doc you linked to was one I found, but it's for Ubuntu 5.10 and I have 6.10. I assumed that page was out of date and that probably the ndiswrapper I had was actually the latest one.

Geoschmo