First off, Im new to the world of Linux so go easy on me. Im trying to see if Linux will run better on my older laptop than XP. I got the LiveCD versions of Knoppix 5.1.1 and Slax Standard 5.1.8.1 and both ran fine except my 2Wire PCMCIA wireless card was not active so their was no internet use. I cant figure how to get it to work. I could sure use some detaile help here.
Thanks
John

In my newbie opinion, I've had much enjoyable computing from my 7 yr. old HP laptop - I've got slackware 10.2 and right now i am trying to get my belkin pcmcia wifi card configured using chipset specific drivers from their website for win xp and then download the ndiswrapper program and follow directions at ndiswrapper.sourceforge.org - I consider myself fairly new to linux and so I try to read all I can from magazines like linux journal but I hear that Ubuntu has a version for older systems like ours called xubuntu and they get good reviews for that linux recognizing hardware and configuring out of the box - I'm going to try that route for learning sake with my older pentium3 based desktop as well.
Good luck.

Ive been doing some reading but most of it is over my head. My problem is that Im running cd versions of the software so I cant install any other apps while the cd is runnning, if I remove it I lose the program. Im going to try Ubuntu and see how that goes, but it looks like its more thatn I want. I just want a small app that wil allow me to surf the new and maybe do a little word processing. Nothing heavy duuty.
Thanks
John

ndiswrapper is already installed in knoppix. You can use a USB drive for storing programs and configuration files etc.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Knowing...ing_permanence

Id really like to stick with Knoppix, it seems much smaller and more like what I"ll need than xubuntu. I have been reading all morning and just dont get it. I know its asking a lot but cold some one post step by step instructions for me using ndiswrapper to get my 2wire card to work.
Thanks Foa ny help provided
John

I do not have any experience with 2wire wireless cards. You need the inf and sys windows setup files. Copy them to a flash or floppy drive. Change directories to the flash or floppy drive and run the following commands
sudo ndiswrapper -i 2wire.inf (replace with the actual name of the inf file)
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

If all goes well look at the output of the command iwconfig and you should see a wireless connection. To configure the adapter:

To set the SSID
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid my_essid

If the adapter connects to the router you should see a valid MAC address for the access point and some link value. To assign an IP address to your adapter
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo pump -i wlan0

Thanks, Im downloading the files now. One more question if you dont mind, how do you run the files? Normally in the "windows" enviroment you double click on the file - where in Knoppix do you type the command? And I will be using a floppy.
Thanks Again
John

You type commands in the terminal window similar to a windows DOS prompt box. This is the BASH (Borne Again SHell) shell which is 100X more powerfull then DOS. The easiest way to pop up a terminal window is to click on the taskbar icon that looks like a computer monitor.