I am upgrading a laptop. Its a Dell Latitiude C840, P4 2.0 ghz with 1gb RAM.
I am going to install a new 80 gb hard drive and get a new battery for it.
I will want to install linux on it, kubuntu most likely.
2 questions:

1. Any hw capability issues to watch out for? other than (2)

2. I am going to buy an internal wireless card. Searching around the web, it looks like intel -> good, broadcom -> bad. Can you recommend a particular card? How about this one? http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Intel-Dell-I...QQcmdZViewItem


Thanks!

Check out the HCL (Hardware Compatability List) here on linuxquestions.com

personally, I'd try to find a miniPCI card with a Prism2 or Orinoco chipset.

>>I'd try to find a miniPCI card with a Prism2 or Orinoco chipset.
because these are morely likely to work with linux? or other reasons?

oh, also, is it difficult to install the internal wireless card?
I've done all of the installation of hw on my desktop except for the motherboard,
but i've never worked on a laptop.

MiniPCI is relatively simple, if you can upgrade the RAM in a laptop you can install a MiniPCI card. My Dell C600 (PIII 850) has a panel on the bottom that covers the MiniPCI slot and RAM slots. It clips in like old EDO RAM, two little tabs on the side then lift up slightly and pull out. My Dell has the connections for the internal antenna, but mine came without wireless since its modem and LAN card are in the MiniPCI slot(it was an either LAN/56k or WiFi not both). It has a funky special wire to connect the antenna to the card so if yours is like this make sure you have the cable.

Dell has entire service manuals online for each specific laptop here is yours.

Contrary to some earlier advice, I'd suggest something like this card: http://www.netgate.com/product_info....roducts_id=109

A miniPCI based on ORiNOCO or Prism chipsets will be very hard to find, will only support 802.11B and will not support WPA.

There's a native driver for the Atheros chipset (as with Intel) plus the card linked above is pretty powerful (19dBm).

Broadcom cards get a bad reputation (I certainly fault the company for its arrogant stance on drivers), but they work fine with ndiswrapper in my experience.

I've got a broadcom card working fine w/ ndiswrapper, it's not really any hassle at all.

So, I didn't actually have the Dell Latitiude C840, i was going to buy it used, but it has now been sold.
I can get an Inspiron 8200 with the same stuff.
Any differences in what we've talked about here?

Speaking of the "something else" is there any other cards besides the above mentioned that are well supported for doing the "something else", but more powerful and supporting 802.11a/b/g?

Suggestions -

MiniPCI:
http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?products_id=126

Cardbus:
http://www.netgate.com/product_info....roducts_id=130

I'm looking for a minipci card that supports kismet (monitor mode), aircrack and aireplay (packet injection).
Anyone knows a good one from experience?

Regards,

FLX