[Cialug] What is a good distro for an older laptop

[Nathan C. Smith]

> 
> Now I am trying to get a D-Link DWL-G650M Wireless PCCARD 
> working.   How
> do I setup this card?   I can see the card via "lspci -v -nn" but I
> haven't found out what next to do.
> 

You can check lsmod and dmesg to see if it looks like a driver loaded for
the card.  I'm guessing the minimal install didn't include the driver so
getting the driver would be important.  You may need to know if a linux
driver exists and if it works, and what chipset is actually in the card.

Does the machine have a net connection through another means?  That will
make getting the driver easier.

You can use apt-get update to update your available software
Then apt-cache search to find specific programs and some keywords - as in
the case of drivers.
And apt-get install {packagename} to get the package and install it.

If the drivers are installed modprobe {drivername} should load the drivers
and then dmesg should tell you more about what you are working with.

Hopefully somebody else will chime in with some better hints.

-Nate