for a Gateway craptop... 2.2GHz, 512MB DDR DRAM, unknown/undisclosed graphics card, unknown/undisclosed 1024x768 LCD display, an AVAYA Worldcard Gold (Rebranded ORiNOCO Classic Gold) WiFi card, and a propensity to hate Operating Systems.

1/3 of a 37GB HDD (shared with Windows - Dual-boot)

I've tried Mandriva 2005 L-E already, and it didn't work out... need something else, and hopefully it'll cooperate with my LCD and WiFi card in the way Mandriva didn't.

KDE Preferred.

EDIT: and of course, something that can be made to work with VO with little or no difficulty is a top priority =P

Discovering what graphics chipset you have will be key to getting Vendetta working.

I think Orinoco cards use the prism chipset and therefore supported by the hostap driver.

Aside from that, I think Kubuntu would be up your alley.

AFAIK, that particular chip is supported by the orinoco_cs driver.

I have no clue what the graphics chipset, and the manufacturer/seller doesn't want to tell me either. either that or they just plain don't know... Furthermore the case is quite conveniently made to NOT come apart again after being put together, so I really can't open it up and find out.

Never heard of Kubuntu... will have to check it out. what are the supposed advantages of using it?

I'm sorry if I really don't catch on fast with the drivers stuff... up until this point I've been pretty much locked into a Tragically Microsoft software arrangement.

*iBump*

KUbuntu is Ubuntu using KDE instead of GNOME for the desktop environment. Ubuntu is a fork of Debian that focuses on being user-friendly & universally accessible. I've not used Ubuntu myself. Clikies: http://www.kubuntu.org/ & http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

Personally I really like Gentoo. Very good ease-of-use while still giving you full control over everything. But installing Gentoo is time-consuming (you compile most applications yourself), and command-line oriented. I personally don't consider either of those to be drawbacks, but not everyone has my opinions.

Is your WiFi card still not working? For most device drivers, it doesn't matter what distribution you use, unless you only use the default kernel that came with the distribution, which I wouldn't recommend, I'd recommend compiling your own kernel. Then you can make sure you have everything you need. And for the record, I have a Orinoco PCMCIA card, that works fine under Linux, so I can vouch for it being supported.

Thanks

Being a linux n00b, I still have no idea how to compile applications, much less the kernel, so a command-line setup is not a very good thing for me ;)

It's actually very simple. Under Gentoo, it consists of running "emerge <program-name>" to compile and install a program.

For the kernel, get a copy of the kernel source, which most distributions have an option to install the kernel source to /usr/src/linux-<version-number> (usually with /usr/src/linux being a symlink to the latest version). Then you just run either "make menuconfig" (ncurses console interface), "make xconfig" (Qt [KDE] graphical interface), or "make gconfig" (GTK [GNOME] graphical interface). Then you go through configuring it how you want it, then exit saving the configuration, and run "make && make modules_install && make install" and you're done.

If the WiFi card isn't supported by the kernel installed by the distro, you are going to have to configure & compile your own kernel.

/me buys the Linux for Dummies book

I'd recommend compiling your own kernel.

Yes, you are in fact a Gentoo buff :)

I used to compile custom kernels for my systems too. It's astonishingly easy. However, I'd never recommend to a newcomer that they should be worrying about compiling their own utilities, let alone their own kernel.

Right now there are exactly two distributions that Linux newbies should be looking at: Suse and Ubuntu. They're the only two that have sufficient "just work"-ness that new users won't get immediately turned off by the switch. Suse has more desktop polish, but Ubuntu has waaay more installable applications.

Fedora Core and Mandriva are second rate (there's always something they forgot to do right). Kubuntu is also nice but is second-rate behind the official Ubuntu release. Gentoo and Slackware, while both "better" in a number of important ways, are NOT for newcomers. Same with core Debian.

All other distributions not named are to be avoided (e.g., Linspire, Xandros, Lycoris, TurboLinux, etc.). They aren't popular for a reason.

pick ubuntu! do it!

thank you! exactly the kind of input I was looking for...

is Ubantu commercial then? how much does it cost?

Ubuntu (and Debian, which Ubuntu is a fork of) isn't commercial. They won't even charge you if you want them to ship you CDs (but unless you're on dial-up, that'd take much longer than downloading). Oh, but if you want Kubuntu (the KDE version of Ubuntu), they don't currently ship CDs for it, you have to download it.

thanks - I downloaded both ISOs last night... I guess I'll have a look as soon as I find the time... to wipe my HD and MBR completely and reinstall two operating systems.

Have you performed the switch yet, Cunjo? Just thought I'd add, in case yer still choosing between distros, that I'm using Kubuntu myself, and it's a wonderful experience. I wish you luck! As little problem as I've had with setting it up (about the only thing that took more than a few minutes was installing the NVIDIA drivers. Ask me for help if you happen to have an NVIDIA graphics card and run into problems during the installation), you should have nothing to worry about.

Another major advantage of ubuntu/kubuntu is that with the current ubuntu hype, many users are switching to ubuntu, and that means it's exceedingly easy to find answers to questions and solutions to problems in the ubuntu and kubuntu forums. So far, I've never had to post myself there, since the very few problems I've encountered had already been discussed and resolved in the forums.

Oh, and the word means "towards humanity" in Bemba. How politically correct and contemporary isn't that? ;-)

Btw, vendetta runs just fine under Kubuntu/KDE. It's just one command line string you have to enter, and the game's ready to be played and loved. Until yer dying day, which shouldn't be very far off, now that Icarus is back...

haven't yet had the time to make the switch, and at this point I'm wondering if I will before summer. Thanks for the input though - I'm definately looking forward to giving Kubuntu a spin (do they have a Live CD?)

mm, well luckily I don't mind dying ;)

Who does, who does? Dying is part of the favour of the Vendetta universe ;-) Although if you catch me saying that in-game, in-cannon, gun ion down, just as a reminder that saying might sometimes equal believing...

Yeah, verily, Kubuntu (just like ubuntu) has a live cd, although I never could get it to work on my old iMac. But the live 368 version ran well on my linux box.

(And, once you've finally made the switch, there are some very simple instructions in the ubuntu/kubuntu forums for installing enlightenment 17, the only linux window manager to make me forget about OS X. It works only barely, the file manager crashes the system or occasionally causes a kernel panic, and I still haven't found a way to access anything else than the default apps :-D, but it's so pretty, gods, oh, so pretty...)