Ok, here's the deal. I have a HP ZV6000 laptop computer, dual booting Windows XP and OpenSUSE 10. I just tried a copy of Kubuntu 7.04 and I fell in love with it, particularly the Adept package manager. Anyway, I would like to migrate, but I'm worried about my settings. I'm particularly concerned with the setup of my wireless card. Its a 'Goddamn Broadcom'. A Broadcom BCM4306 wireless NIC to be exact. It took several, painful hours from my life, that I will never get back. Its also running a KDE 3.4 interface. Can anyone suggest a way to migrate with the best possible chance of keeping my wireless settings intact? I want to minimize the possibility of a suicidal/homicidal rampage happening in downtown Orlando via me. Thanks.

The program that helps you to get online with Kubuntu is bcm43xx-fwcutter, which is in the repositories.

(Debian link, just to get an idea: http://packages.debian.org/testing/u...43xx-fwcutter).

How to make this as painless as possible? If you install Kubuntu and are able to hook it up to a wired network you could download and install fwcutter. If you want to install it wireless I have a suggestion. For a project I created a "fat" version of Ubuntu with Kubuntu integrated, which has fwcutter pre-installed. It's DVD and even in live mode you can go online wireless. At least you can test it first this way. You can find it here: http://www.linuxtracker.org/torrents...?id=4268&hit=1

It might be a bit too much for you with three desktops (KDE, GNOME and Xfce), but the live version can at least help you to test the wifi card.

Thanks! I downloaded your Ubuntu live DVD, and put it to work. Although I preferred to use a thinner version of Ubuntu, your DVD provided a backup that would provide a stable wifi connection. It is also a good DVD to have to test out a wide variety of programs without having to install them. Kudos! I eventually downloaded a 64-bit version of Kubuntu and have installed BCM-fwcutter and everything is working well.

Great!

I know the DVD is on the "fat" side. It is intended for people without a broadband connection that get the DVD when they buy my book that is due to come out. Like you wrote, they can test out a lot of programs before dedicating any real harddrive space to it.

But most of all I am glad you could migrate to another distro and solve the wifi challenge. As we write in the book: "a problem becomes a challenge when a solution is available"