how can i set grub to default on my win xp partition ony my laptop so other users who are computer novices do not have to select it from the menu... in fedora there is a gui app that you can edit this stuff...

also, i cannot get my wireless card that is built in to detect or work... how do i go about doing this? do i have to get the windows driver from my the manufacturers website? if so how do i load it?

thanks for the help!

This is very easy. Just use a plain text editor to edit grub.conf. There will be a line like:
Change this figure to match the XP grub entry minus 1. So if XP is listed second, make it "default 1"

You can also change "timeout" to the number of seconds you want grub to wait before it boots the default.

We need to know the make/model/chipset of your wireless NIC before we can help with this. You can get this info by running "lspci".

Check this site for details on setting up wireless on linux:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/

If your card is a broadcom, then you will need to use ndiswrapper, and yes you wil,l need you windows drivers. I suggest getting them from the driver cd that came with your windows (if you have it...)

In any event, this is as much help as I can give without knowing the type of card you have...

Manufacturer Broadcom
Model number BCM94306MP
Network standards IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g draft
Frequency range 2.412 GHz to 2.497 GHz (subject to local regulations)
Number of channels 802.11b:

USA, Canada and Taiwan - 11
Most European Countries - 13
France - 4 Japan - 14
802.11g:


USA, Europe, and Japan -13

Data rate 802.11b: 11, 5.5, 2, 1 Mbps
802.11g: 54, 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 9, 6 Mbps
Modulation 802.11b:

11 Mbps and 5 Mbps - CCK
2 Mbps - DQPSK
1 Mbps - DBPSK
802.11g: OFDM

Transmit power 15 dBm (maximum)
Range performance 802.11b: 11 Mbps up to 180 m outdoors and 60 m indoors
802.11g: 54 Mbps up to 50 m outdoors and 20 m indoors
Note: The performance varies depending on the environment.

Host interface Mini-PCI Type III A
Network mode Infrastructure and Ad Hoc
Software support Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows XP SP1, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98 SE
Security 64-bit or 128-bit WEP
WEP weak-key avoidance
TKIP
AES engine support CCM and OCB, 802.1x, SSN

Antenna Internal antenna with diversity support
Power consumption Tx peak: 550 mA at 3.3VDC
Rx peak: 350 mA at 3.3VDC
Idle: 225mA at 3.3VDC
Radio disabled: <10 mA at 3.3VDC

Temperature range 0 to 40° C (operating), -20 to 65° C (storing)
Humidity 15 to 95%
Regulatory FCC part 15C/15.247and CE Mark
ETS 300 328-2

Ok, you need ndiswrapper then.

These links will get you started:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m....php/Main_Page

If you have specific problems getting it running, then ndiswrapper has their own forums, or else you can start a new thread here in the wireless networking forum.

during the process if installing ndiswrapper.... i tried to use "make" and "gmake" and other things of the sort... why is it that i am getting command not found... is this not something used in debian based distro's? (forgive me im new)

Sounds like maybe you don't have a toolchain installed. The toolchain is a C compiler and all the related utilities (including make) you need to compile source code.

Can you try "which gcc"
If you get no reply, then yes, you need to install all this stuff. Using Ubuntu's synaptic, installing "gcc" should bring in all the dependencies you need...

Hey: I found this page, which describes ndiswrapper under Ubuntu, as well as installing gcc to build it:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...dex.php/Ubuntu

ok i had gcc 4.0... not 3.4 which was required for ndiswrapper 1.5

got it now... thanks