Turn a Windows User Into a Linux User

I had a friend complaining to me about BSOD's. Well I gave my usual speech about what they are and such and offered to analyze them. I pointed him in the path of a utility from Nirsoft, BlueScreenView and he sent me the results. I let him know that most likely it was a driver issue and maybe he could update. I also had given him a USB flash drive with Linux Mint Katya on it and low and behold I received an email that night that he had wiped Windows 7 away and was enjoying Linux.

He had one real issue and that was finding the right wireless driver. Once he connected wired, the driver was downloaded and installed along with other updates and all was well.

Tux clipart
from Clker.com

Chalk another one up for the penguins.

How To Install Wireless In Linux The Easy Way

The first thing to do is research. The great thing about Linux is someone somewhere has done it before you. So that makes step one Google your Linux choice of distro plus your wireless card's chipset (open terminal and type lspci to identify the chipset) and follow the instructions You will find. This will make the road to wireless easier. Also be sure and read more than one post. Stay away from the posts that have lots of comments like try this and this. If it looks like they are guessing they probably are. You will be able to tell them apart if you read more than one. The specific forums for your chosen distro are also great resources and many have wikis devoted to the distro as well. If you have not yet installed Linux, then now is the time to research your distro and wireless card choices. I have also learned a lot from reading forum posts and from websites like HowToForge. I have been reading in the Craigslist Linux forum for more than a year and now I finally feel like I know just enough to even answer a few questions. You can find me as handle fat32flash. Check it out and any other forum that meets your needs. So there you have it. My definition of installing wireless in Linux the easy way. The only real requirement is you need to be able to read.

Shrinking Windows Partition

When I started this blog my Windows partition was 100GB's. Now I only give it just a tick over 27GB"s. Why you ask? To install Linux. tonight I finished with my install of Debian Lenny complete with wireless. It did take me the better part of two evenings and a lot o command line work but I did learn some things along the way. I plan on sticking with Debian as my main distro. Debian has a lot to offer and I can grow into it for a long time. And let's face it most of the more popular distros are based on Debian anyway. Ubuntu and all of its derivatives, Mepis, AntiX and a host of others are all derived from Debian. That's all for now I still have my favorite game to install along with a few other things.

Something To Shout About

Wow is all I can say so far. I am writing this from Fedora 11 on my USB stick. This is the first boot on this laptop and all I had to do to get connected was enter my SSID, select my security and enter the pass phrase. I was connected about 5 seconds later and at a higher rate than I have been with Ubuntu. This is for me anyway, the most polished distro I've ever run. I am looking forward to seeing more.