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[Ratae]

Ok guys. I've acquired an old banger of a laptop that has been rescued from a skip (Honestly  )

It's a 2003 model Acer Travelmate with a 15" screen. It has no wi-fi card installed and originally had Windows XP Home Premium on it.

So, my original intention was to wipe the drive and use this machine to try and test a few different Linux distros etc.

I wiped the drive and shoved Linux Mint 16 (Petra) with the Cinnamon desktop on it, mostly to see how different it is to my Linux Mint 14 Mate netbook.

Then I put XP back on it just because there was something that I needed to check out, that I didn't want to try on my main W7 machines.

Using Windows on it, I can use this usb wi-fi adapter that my son gave me, which I did. But, test over and what I wanted to know,  now learned, I'm looking to go back to using this old lappy for Linux testing.

Well, I'm wondering if any of you have had any success with using a usb w/less adapter on a Linux machine, and if you have, which distro etc.

I can connect to the internet ok via the network cable, but that means bringing the old lappy down from my 'office/den' and using it in my sitting room, where the router is situated. 

No great problem, just thought that I'd ask like! 

[kitz]

Hi ratae, Im not a linux bod, but I should imagine the main thing would be knowing the make and model of the wi-fi adapter... in order to search if there are any linux drivers for it.

[Ratae]

Hi ratae, Im not a linux bod, but I should imagine the main thing would be knowing the make and model of the wi-fi adapter... in order to search if there are any linux drivers for it.

.

Hiya Kitz..... yep, that's what I thought. I am hoping that someone here already uses a wi-fi adapter that has Linux drivers for it!

[broadstairs]

It will likely depend on the chip set used in the adapter. I have Linux on two laptops both with wi-fi adapters in and they both worked with the initial install of Fedora with no help from me. I also had a couple of wi-fi PCMCIA cards which again both worked without trouble.

So if you can find the chipset it will help to work out what drivers may be missing.

Stuart

[Blackeagle]

In a terminal, type in lsusb

Hopefully, the output of that command will reveal the manufacturer of the device and a hexadecimal ID no, in the form of xxxx:xxxx

Armed with this information, it should be possible to determine if Linux drivers are available for that device.

[Ratae]

In a terminal, type in lsusb

Hopefully, the output of that command will reveal the manufacturer of the device and a hexadecimal ID no, in the form of xxxx:xxxx

Armed with this information, it should be possible to determine if Linux drivers are available for that device.

Ok BEagle...I'll give that a try

[Ratae]

Ok folks, I finally got back to messing about with this old lappy.

Well, because their was a couple of Windows programs that I needed to check out, without risking them on my main machines, I shoved XP on this lappy and tested them on it. Then, after doing this, I had a think about it until I decided eventually to partition the hdd and shove Linux Mint 14 (Petra) with the Cinnamon desktop on the primary partition.

I put Mint on a 25gb partition and left XP on the 15gb secondary partition.

The Sitecom usb wi-fi adapter that worked with XP, I left plugged in. After installation I connected to the internet with a network cable, installed a bunch of updates for Mint then from the repositories downloaded and installed that Broadcom STA driver that I had some success with on the Dell lappy.

I then rebooted the lappy.

Bingo....the wireless networks in the area were showing. I clicked on my router's SSID and typed the password.......I'm in! 

I also ran that lsusb command that B.Eagle suggested, there at the top was my Sitecom usb adaptor. 

To be honest, I'm still not sure if it was the updates or that Broadcom driver that did the trick, whichever....it's running on rails.

Now then, this Mint 16 distro, I still can't see what the improvements are over the Mint 14 that I run on my netbook. Not sure that I prefer the Cinnamon desktop to the Mate one either. In fact I'm looking at changing the Cinnamon desktop to Gnome if that's possible.

Eventually, I'm gonna take a look at another distro, maybe Fedora.


I'm open to suggestions though! 

[MartinGoose]

Eventually, I'm gonna take a look at another distro, maybe Fedora.

Why not try Kubuntu 14.04 just released. It's a long term support version. The KDE desktop is a good replacement for MS Windows.

[Ratae]

Eventually, I'm gonna take a look at another distro, maybe Fedora.

Why not try Kubuntu 14.04 just released. It's a long term support version. The KDE desktop is a good replacement for MS Windows.

Cheers Bud, I'll put that on my "To be considered" list. 

[Ratae]

Right then guys, something else I'm trying to figure out.

This old lappy that I've put Mint 16 on is running beautifully really, but today I looked at getting the mini b/tooth adapter I have to work. After a bit of investigation, I read that this particular Belkin adaptor is not compatible with Linux.

However, I also read an article where some clever clogs had found a 'workaround'

This involved making a text file, and inserting it in the /etc directory.

Well...I tried this the windows way by making the file and then just dropping it into the appointed place, predictably I wasn't allowed to do it. I'm assuming that this has to be done as 'root'

Well...I don't know how to do that. Can someone point me in the right direction.


BTW....this is my 'white mouse' machine, if it dies, it dies! 

[roseway]

You can easily copy files using the command line, e.g.:

cd <the directory where the text file is>
sudo cp ./<textfilename> /etc/

Obviously you have to replace the bits between < and > with the actual directory and filename.

[Ratae]

Thanks Eric, I'll give that a try when I get the chance.

[Ratae]

"Permission Denied"


Clearly I'm doing something wrong! 

[roseway]

Did you include "sudo" in the command? It should have asked you for your password, and then carried out the command.

[Ratae]

Did you include "sudo" in the command? It should have asked you for your password, and then carried out the command.

Eric...I just filled in the relevant parts where you indicated, then pasted it into the terminal. I was not asked for my password which surprised me too.

Obviously, something that I did was wrong, left a gap in the wrong place maybe.

I'll go back to it another time, that terminal thing tries my patience to the limits, and that for me is the right time to 'walk away'