D link G Wireless adapter and Ubuntu
 

I have switched to Ubuntu 8 months back and quite happy with it .. Have downloaded all the soft-wares i need and its efficient.

I have 2 doubts ....

1) Am using D link G 122 Wireless adapter to catch WiFi signal and its working smoothly. This qs is just out of curiosity. In windows we need to install the driver from the CD that we get while purchasing D Link.

When I was switching to Ubuntu I was afraid how to install the driver as it was only Windows & Mac Compatible.

But to my happy Surprise as soon as Ubuntu finished installing ; D Link immediately Caught the signal and I Started using net seamlessly without even installing the D Link driver CD . Is it a coincidence or Ubuntu can read any WiFi Adapter without installing the driver from the CD ?

2) I 1st Installed Ubuntu 9.10 but after finishing installing when I restarted it didn't. Instead all I got was a blank black screen.
Finally I installed Ubuntu 9.04 and it has been working fine since then . So was it any prob with my hardware or Ubuntu 9.10 has some boot time issues ?

1. Drivers for linux are almost always included in the kernel. For most hardware, if it works at all, it will work out of the box. Contrary to popular perceptions, linux actually supports more hardware than Windows. Two of the main exceptions are wireless cards and graphics cards. For wireless cards, there is frequently an open source driver, but the cards require extra non-free firmware to run. This is the case with many Broadcom cards. (There is also a non-free driver released by broadcom for some cards.) ATI and Nvidia graphics cards both have decent open source drivers at this point, but may not support the full capabilities of the card. For example, to get proper 3D acceleration on Nvidia cards, you have to install the proprietary nvidia driver. For a variety of reasons, linux distributions cannot or will not distribute non-free software.

So to answer your question, many wireless cards will work out of the box in Ubuntu and for those that don't, it's usually a simple matter to download the necessary firmware.

2. Sounds like a graphics card issue or possibly something got corrupted in the install. Assuming the former, booting in Safe Graphics Mode may have gotten you to the desktop and allowed you to troubleshoot.

N vidia
 

.. Thnx for ur reply .. I am planning to switch to a more powerful pc .. with High End N vidia Graphic cards . As per ur post .. It seems i might run in to problem when i install ubuntu in it .

Can u specify which graphic cards should I purchase that will be compatible with Ubuntu ... ?

Sorry if I was unclear. Nvidia is fine. But if you want 3D acceleration, which is required for all the fancy compiz effects, like the desktop and such, you need to install the proprietary nvidia driver. Ubuntu's Hardware Manager app, or whatever it's called, makes installing it quite easy. It should alert you that there are restricted drivers available for your hardware when you boot up, and let you install them, or you can access through the menu entry as well.

Currently, I believe Ubuntu using the free nv driver by default for nvidia. This driver is kind of awful. I've seen many people post problems with it. There is another project, called nouveau, which has reverse engineered the proprietary nvidia driver, and I think it will be the default in the next Ubuntu release. Fedora 12 already uses it, and it was put into the mainline kernel for 2.6.33, I believe. So it will soon be the default for any distro running a current kernel. It's quite good and has stable 2D acceleration, but 3D acceleration is still in the works.

Thnx .. its much easier now .. but 1 more query ...

You said ... "you need to install the proprietary nvidia driver."(for 3D effects).

Is there any link where I can download the above said driver .. or is it available while purchasing .

Which all graphic cards will give a smooth 3d effects of compiz ???

You can download it from nvidia's website, but the recommended method is just to use Ubuntu's helper app.
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/nvidia

Pretty much any Nvidia card ought to give decent performance, and many ATI cards. I don't actually use compiz or 3D acceleration. When I had an nvidia card, I preferred to use the open source driver over the proprietary one. I now have an ATI card. I think 3D acceleration might be supported with the open source driver, but it isn't something I care much about.

Thanks .. that link is really good .. in fact that website is all one needs when switching to Lunux Ubuntu .....