Linux on ThinkPad
 

So I have T42P, and dual booting XP Pro and FC3. Since FC3 no longer supported I was thinking of installing something new. Not sure if I should go with FC6, Suse, kubuntu or something else. I think all three flavors will have software I want: Eclipse, bluefish, xampp. What I would like is a descent wirless support. For FC3 I had to go through ndiswrapper, auto SSID detection never really worked well. In general it was frustrating to use. I have Intel Wirless 2200BG internal wirelless "card".

Thanks.

The 2200BG is natively supported in Linux now, and has been for some time. You shouldn't be using ndiswrapper for it.

Any modern distribution should be able to detect it automatically. Though you may need to download the firmware binary on your own, I am not sure about the rules involved when distributing that with free software.

I'm running Debian unstable on an identical T42. The ipw2200 wireless adapter is supported by the kernel as of version 2.6.14, so as stated above, you should not be using ndiswrapper for it. You do need to get the newest version of the firmware, v 3.0 from this site: http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

When you download the firmware, unzip the archive into /lib/firmware, and then everything should be beautiful. Most distros will not distribute the firmware, as it is binary, so not open source.

Peace,
JimBass