Hi Folks,
I'm a complete noob at Linux. I really want to give it a try.

I downloaded Mepis and Knoppix. seems nice, but none of these distributions recognize any of my network cards.

I own a HP nx5000. Built-in NW cards are Intel Wireless 2200 and Broadcom 440.

Is there a live-CD distro supporting any of these NW cards *out of the box* ? Just boot on the CD and surf on the net, that's what I am looking for. I don't want to do any complex operations for a basic evaluation. I don't wanna install anything on my HD before I've tested Linux and am sure it has all I need.

Which distribution should I choose ? If no distribution supports my hardware, what should I do to enable one of the cards ?

Thx in advance for your help !

Marc.

Look at some linux hardware compatability pages like
http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Har...WTO/index.html
to check for hardware compatability.

Then look at the card manufacturers sites to see if they have support for Linux.

Some Wi-Fi devices can be made to work with ndswrapper
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...e/41/2004/08/3

Another easy solution is to plug into a wireless bridge. No drivers or anything necessary. They will work with any machine and cost the same as a good pci card. Like the Linksys WET11.

Do a little searching on this forum and you will see that some chipsets are best stayed away from because the manufacturer is not supporting Linux. Others work out of the box, others can be made to work using the windows .inf file.

It takes a little effort to get Linux up and running, but wait until you see what you get for your effort.

http://linuxiso.org/