I posted some of these issues in the Installations forum but maybe I need to start here and get the info as an absolute beginner. I have no Linux or Unix experience. I've used Windows most of my life. As far as Linux goes, I am an absolute beginner.

I want to give Linux a try for various reasons. I recently installed Ubuntu 7.10 on an Acer Travelmate 2300, 1.5 GHZ Celeron and 512 MB ram. It was running XP but I erased everything and did a new install. Ubuntu is the only OS on the laptop now.

There are two main problems that I am trying to address right now.

- Wireless does not work. I get Internet when I plug into a cable. But my router is in an inconvenient corner of my basement. I pretty much run a wireless network. So without wireless this laptop is not online. I've been doing my troubleshooting by downloading files to another computer and then transfer them to the Ubuntu machine.

- I can not get anything more than a basic graphics setup. I know my graphics card is capable of much better graphics than what I am able to get right now.

- I also will need to address printing. But I know that printing to my Lexmark laser printer through my wireless network will be difficult to accomplish in Linux. I haven't started to play with this yet.


The wireless is my main focus right now. I believe troubleshooting the other issues will be much easier once this machine has an active Internet connection.

So... here is where I stand with my issues at this point.


1) In trying to get my wireless to work one of the first things I did was go through the Ubuntu wireless troubleshooting document. The first step is, Check for device recognition: Open Device Manager (System → Administration → Device Manager). I try to do that but I do not see Device Manager listed on my menu. Is there some reason why I would not have Device Manager? Is this an indication that I had a problem during installation? Do I need to do something to manually install Device Manager?

2) I tried initially to set up a Windows driver using the Windows Wireless Driver gui. Whatever I did din't work and now the Windows Wireless Driver gui no longer opens. When I click on Windows Wireless Drivers the password window comes up, I type in my password, then the Windows Wireless Drivers window starts to open but then immediately closes. I am unable to get it to stay open at all. I know you can accomplish the same tasks through the command line but it would be nice to get this to work again. After my install I initially did not have the Windows Wireless Driver gui. I had to manually install ndisgtk and that worked. I tried to reinstall that package now and I still have the same problem with the gui.

3) The driver that I installed is the driver for the INP2220, which is correct for my card. Following someone's instructions I typed "sudo ndiswrapper -i neti2220.inf" to manually install and I got a message stating that driver was already installed.

4) Regarding my video, I tried a couple times to manually set my display settings and ended up messing up my display to the point where it wasn't readable. It took me a while to figure out how to get it back to normal. I read a few places stating that Envy works so I tried to install that. When I try to install Envy I get a message stating "Dependency is not satisfiable: debhelper". So I try installing debhelper and I get a message saying "Dependency is not satisfiable: dpkg-dev" But dpkg-dev is already installed. Not sure where else to go with this.


I know this is a long post but I am stuck and I just don't know where else to go with this. I feel like I'm getting close but at this point I am clueless as to what I should do next.

Thanks in advance for your help!

How do you know wireless does not work? That is what are you looking at that says you do not have a connection? What does the output of ifconfig say? Is the Network Manager applet running? It's usually on the top toolbar at the upper right.

I eventually dropped using my Acer Travelmate 630's built-in wireless card and went with a Cardbus Linksys card and an as-installed /etc/network/interfaces file. I could get connectivity with the built-in wireless card, but it was problematic.

As to graphics, did you see a warning indicating you were running in low graphics mode upon logging in? Check System --> Administration --> Restricted Drivers Manager to see if there's a driver you can load. Please remember that if you are the person who installed Ubuntu and you are prompted for an admin password, use yours, because you're considered root.