Hi,

I am also a Linux newbie (although a genuine Windows expert with computing experience dating back to the TI99/4A and C64 days), and I am also finding Linux a challenge. Somewhat like the original poster of this thread, I find a lot of the Linux user help to be less than helpful (certainly NO complaints about this forum. This thread is has some of the most intelligent, well-thought-out, replies that I have seen on any topic).

For example, I found this thread while trying to install Linux on a 2 year old Dell Inspiron 600m notebook PC. The main problem has been getting the PRO 2100 Wireless card working. Last fall I played around with a Knoppix CD, and I liked the "look" and found it promising, but it did not recognize the Pro 2100, so internet use was a no-go. For me, not very useful, so I waited....

So, another approx 9 months later I try again..., decided to go with a full HD install, I researched the topic and found that even though there are probably 100,000+ Intel Centrino notebooks sold worldwide for at least 2 years (this is NOT cutting-edge hardware by any means...), I cannot seem to find a distro that will install a driver "out-of-the-box" for this Pro 2100 wireless NIC. Probably one of THE MOST COMMON wireless NIC's.

2-year-old-common-hardware and not be able to install automatically? Frustrating and disappointing, especially since I find information about the Pro2100 using a NDIS wrapper type of driver having been available for more than a year. Why is it not incorporated into someone's distro package by now?

And, if I understood HOW to install that driver, I would. But, like the 1st guy said, it is very much greek. Compile it? Yes, in the late 80's I programmed Fortran and Turbo Pascal, so I know what 'compile' is, but honestly this is not what most people would expect to have to do just to get a COMMON driver installed. I realize that Linux is different and I am accustomed to doing it the windows-way, but honestly, why is there no double-click to run a driver installation package?

If I could at least get ALL of the hardware working properly on this laptop (which is not my main computer), I could begin to actually USE Linux, thereby experimenting and learning, and once I learn enough, I can permanently switch in the next year or so.

Last evening I tried the lastest Mandrake/Mandriva distro. Looked very nice, but again no-dice on the Pro2100. (And the audio card was apparently incorrectly recognized, because I had no audio either although the OS thought I did). Tried Ubuntu, and again no dice (even though it properly named the Pro2100, it was not able to do anything constructive with it).

So, I am trying SUSE 9.3 tonight because I found a post somewhere saying that the NIC installed properly with SUSE 9.3 (although the post was vague and may have been referring to the wired NIC), and if no go, then Debian 3.1 tomorrow.

Maybe if one of you kind souls has some helpful advice, I can break through this bottleneck. I sort of wish that I could have gotten the nic installed under Mandriva because I liked the look, but at this point anything will be a plus.