I'm about to buy a laptop and want to run Linux instead of Windows. However, I discovered while googling that the laptop I want to buy, a Toshiba L300 series, appears to have a serious problem with Linux due to its wireless card, a Realtek RTL8187b, which seems to have myriad problems running under Ubuntu, Mint and other distros that I want to use.

I've googled a lot about this, and can't seem to get a definitive answer to the question -- has this problem been solved in new distro releases? I don't want to buy the Toshiba and not be able to use Linux on it. But it is the clear choice for me of the laptops I'm considering. I've spent weeks researching this purchase, and if I have to rule this one out, there's not a good alternative where I live (a country with a limited variety of laptops).

So I'm hoping someone knows: is the RTL8187b problem now history? Will the wireless work effortlessly and well? As a newbie to Linux, the various hacks I've seen on the net won't be easy for me to do, as I am coming to Linux cold, with zero experience, after years of enduring Windows. And it's not clear to me that these hacks even are successful in solving the problem.

Thanks for any info.

I was messing around with a card a while back that supposedly had the RTL8187b chipset. I was unable to get it to work for me either with ndiswrapper or with native LInux drivers. I am now happily using a card with an atheros chipset natively with no problems on that laptop.

You may or may not have similar luck - I have heard varying reports on this and that's just my 2 cents.

worked out of the box no ndiswrapper.
I bought two of the pcmcia trendnet cards that uses the RTL8185/8187 module. one was for my Toshiba 2501 cds Toshiba and one was for my girl friends computer both are running puppy linux 4.12 both of them found the card and worked great.
Here is the kicker you need to be running at least 2.6.25 kernel. it may actually be 2.6.24.26 but any way they work great I got one that is getting over 500 feet for reception the 2.6.24 did not have the drivers and this has caused alot of talk. so know you know. theses are pcmcia and pci only I can speak for.
Oh yeah Slackware 2.6.27.7 kernel I had now problem with either. these are all vanilla kernels.
ubuntu 810 will work 8.04 you needed to update to the 2.4.26.XX kernel to get it to work. I just wiped mint did not like it slow boot just to much trouble with my old hardware like 4vl2 that is in the mint 6 that you need to do some configuring in a terminal to get things working . Easy for me but for a nubi not sure.
I am testing Slackware 12.2 with the 4.2 kde it has 3d desk top built in I like it.

I bought a Toshiba L350-170 with a RTL8187B wireless card recently with the intention of using it for linux, but my linux experience has been wrought with wireless problems. I seem to remember getting it to work with Slackware after not too much effort, and it worked on Fedora almost instantly, but even when it worked, the connection was incredibly slow and occasionally just turned off. I found that if the kernel was 2.6.27 or higher, it would work sometimes, and I have tried a LOT of distributions since I bought this computer, so I wouldn't recommend this card.