[Cialug] DSL and wireless

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 9:54 PM, Tom Sellers <tomsellers2001 at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I loaded DSL on a USB stick so that I could boot up my laptop in Linux
> rather than try to use my other old laptop.  It works if I connect it
> directly to a cable but wireless is another story.  The DSL site says that
> the Cisco wirless 350 PCMCIA card works out of the box but I can't seem to
> make it work at all.  The laptop (IBM Thinkpad R60)actually has a built in
> Intel Pro Wireless 3945 ABG network card.  It appeared that this card does
> not work well with DSL so I chose to insert a Cisco 350 card that I had
> laying around since it was said to work out of the box.
>
> Anyone have any experience with DSL running wirelessly?  Suggestions?
>
>
Hi Tom, forgive me, this is not the reply you're looking for.

DSL is a great linux considering the compromises it makes. However do
realize that it is a linux version built on the premise of compromise, which
are in some cases significant. You see, it is built to run w/ only 50MB of
space. A modern linux desktop will typically need 1GB to 5GB of space. That
is a huge difference.

So to work it has to trim out a lot of stuff and in some cases use older
versions of key software components. This means it can be quite tricky to
troubleshoot because many of use haven't used that version of the kernel or
the operating environment for years.

One thing that has improved dramatically in recent software releases is
wireless networking.

Therefore if you have it within your means I'd strongly suggest trying to
use a more full-featured and modern linux desktop. There are numerous
versions that can run off of a USB memory stick.

I'm a big Ubuntu fan so my experience is with it. If you have a 1GB USB
memory stick you can create a bootable live install.

The way that I've made the bootable drive is by using the Ubuntu tool
usb-creator. Of course you don't have Ubuntu installed so you can't use this
tool. Instead, you may want to use:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromImgFiles - Ubuntu
specific
http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ - create Ubuntu and other Linux live installs.
I've never used this one before but it is nice that it supports more than
just Ubuntu.

Just something to consider.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter
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