Hi, I had played with linux a bit over year ago (RH, Mandrake, Debian) for nothing more than to learn something new. I really enjoyed the control I had over my computer (for better and worse lol). But I gave it up because I was big on some pretty heavy games that could only be played on w1ndow$. From my previous experiance, the only thing linux couldn't offer me was the ability to play my games. Now that I'm running two desktops and a laptop, I decided to 'penguinfy' my laptop. The next section is my specs, the second section my brief experiance, and the last section is my questions.

### My Laptop Specs ###
HP Pavilion ze4900
Celeron M 1.3
256Mb Ram
-----lspci-----
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:05.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
02:06.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
#######

### My Experiance ###
I faced the normal newbie fear of "which distro". Since I have tried linux before my only concern was simply "Which distro is best for my laptop". I read many forums, articles, complaints, praises, etc... I downloaded a Knoppix LiveCD to test my laptop (no complaints) and I finally decided on Fedora C4 because I was able to get all 5 discs with one torrent. The installation went smoothly. The timer list 35 mins for about 45 mins, but it installed with no real headaches (interruption-wise). So I'm now running linux on my laptop and I have only a few concerns.....
#######

### My Questions ###

1. I connect to the internet through a home network using a WAP and my laptop's integrated wireless. I have successfully gotten my wireless connection to work but my only concern is that everytime I reboot I have to type 'modprobe ndiswrapper' then 'dhclient wlan0' in terminal in order to access the internet. How can I have those commands automated upon startup so I don't have to type them everytime my laptop comes up.

2. I can't get my sound to work. I've read topics on this issue but I can't seem to get any solution to work. In Gnome, when I click the "Test" button, it freezes and I have to Xkill the window. I tried to blacklist snd_intel8x0m but it didn't help. Any help would be appreciated.

3. This REALLY ticks me off....I'm using a touchpad and it keeps taking me back a few pages in firefox. I can't move my mouse without going back about 8 pages. simply aggravating. I figure its a type of mouse-shortcut but I searched and can't find how to stop it from doing this.

####

Thanks for reading and thanks for any help you may be able to offer

1) Put all those commands in one file like this:
modprobe ndiswrapper
dhclient wlan0
....and so on

Make that file executable like this: chmod +x wireless.sh (or whatever the name of the file is). You can manually run that file when you log in or add it to your startup execution path (/etc/rc.d/rc.local).. I think.

2) What happens when you try "alsamixer" command as root.. does it detect a soundcard? I had an AC97' soundcard in one of my machines.. and Ubuntu picked it up perfectly.. download that distro and install it if you cant fix that.

3) Not sure what you mean there.. please rephrase that.

Good Luck

answer N2
lspci -v | grep AUDIO # tells which driver your card uses bu default
grep sound-slot /etc/modules.conf # tells which driver is used NOW
/sbin/lsmod # check if THE driver loaded
chkconfig --list sound &
chkconfig --list alsa #tells a few thing about alsa
aumix -q #checks if the sound ON
fuser -v /dev/dsp # tells which programme USES your sound card
N1
there are many ways to ran progs automatically
whith RedHat-like distros you can write a script with your commands and put it in /etc/rc.d/init.d/your_script
and then
ln -s /etc/init.d/your_script /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S99your_script
(hope your def.run.level is 5
N3 - sorry no answer yet - I've never used a touchpad