TOSHIBA Satellite and linux
 

Hi, as I'm new here, I have used linux Operating Systems for a while now, maybe three or four years.

I've recently got a new laptop to do my work, and was willing to install Linux Mint Debian MATE on one partition, and leave windows 7 on another for gaming, and such, but this laptop does not seem to like linux operating systems!

I believe it's because of the wireless driver, because whenever I have Ethernet plugged in, it works smoothly, and does not freeze up, however, when I disconnect it, and it starts looking for a wireless connection, it freezes up, the keyboard get locked up, and the mouse too.

I've tried setting up the wireless beforehand unplugging the Ethernet, and it connected to my home network with no problem, however when I rebooted the computer, I got similar problems.

Any suggestions? Or should I go and replace this laptop with something else? Thank you.

I know that on some laptops you need to set network boot first in the BIOS or it will lock up like you describe, can't say if it'll work on yours but it'd be worth trying.

Sorry to sound like a noob, but how do I make that happen? I checked the BIOS option for boot, and it only had the HDD and CD, which I made CD before HDD

Looking for wireless should not cause it to lock up. Does the live cd work properly?

What's the wireless card make and model, and what driver are you using? is it the latest driver for mint for your video card?

Well that's the problem, I even ran puppy linux, worked fine, until I tried to detect Internet with the wireless option, and it froze.

For mint, I got the latest download from their website: http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

It's a toshiba satellite c655d-s5529: http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/...oid=2000019847

Atheros AR8152/8158 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)
Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

I've researched and saw other people having similar problems, and someone said that it was the kernel's problem detecting it and working with it, but hasn't it been reported or anything? I mean that post was probably one or two years ago...

Then my suggestion probably doesn't apply... Sorry!

Ok, for some reason, when I tried out Ubuntu, it worked, the only distro that worked so far is ubuntu.

It seems it has the wireless driver patched, but for some reason when I tried to install the graphics card, it froze on me again, so I had to re install it.

But it says that the driver is tested by the ubuntu developers, I don't know why it froze but I don't mind that. Guess I'll be using ubuntu again...

I find it best to stick with some distro - otherwise you always end up setting things up, as no distro is 100% on all hardware out of the box.

So Install your favourite, and then tell us the errors. And I mean check logs and stdout for messages. If a program crashes, run it in an xterm and post the errors, etc. people can use that stuff to find and fix your problems.

Well that's the thing it doesn't show logs...

This is ridiculous... I shut down the computer for the night and go to bed, and today morning, try to boot from ubuntu, and it freezes again, I try to get in with the live CD that freezes too.... I try to connect with the ethernet, it works fine, but my shortcuts on the task bar was set to default again... What is wrong with toshiba? It's like someone intentionally programmed it to not run linux, and whenever it does, it locks itself out...

It's freezing due to the wireless problem again I'm pretty sure, because before it didn't happen with ubuntu, but now it is...

If it's trying to log on with dhcp there's usually a 30 or 60 second delay in the script while it tries to log a (non functional) wifi card on to your router. Be patient.

Where it hangs, can you post a message? What is it saying to you?

I don't know how to display error messages as it just freezes completely.

Though one of my friends suggested me to get ndiswrapper and install a windows wireless program on the card, I tried doing that, though it still froze, maybe I was doing it wrong? How can I delete a hardware's software from linux to re install it from ndiswrapper?

If else fails, I'm going to buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833180075

And use it to let the wireless work and not freeze hopefully. But do you think it'll work?

Sounds disgusting - tell us more :). Exactly what provokes a freeze? Can you boot without it freezing? I'm gathering you can. Never mind doing what you were doing. Try these in a console, and post back what it says.

in your home dir (~/) wireless.txt will be a file you can read with less

Try switching to wicd from network manager. But before you do, download the *.deb files for network mamanager and (all) its dependencies and put them on a flash drive, in case you need them...

Additionally, I read something about SSIDs with strange characters in the filename causing problems with that card,... Avoid that kind of naming and, probably, hidden networks as well.