[GNOME32]

Hey, just switched over to Knoppix 5.1, and I'm loving it (other than the fact of my cd drive being out of commission while in Knoppix because of the non-HD, CD exclusiveness of the flavor), other than my wireless card not working in it. I found a driver here: http://www.opendrivers.com/categoryc...oad-page1.html, (number 49), and I'm not sure how to install it? Where would be the best place to find a tutorial for installing it?

[RobLinux]

Knoppix used to support :

1) Saving settings on local hard disk
2) Installation onto HD (at which point it becomes a Debian variant)

Have a look at the The Linux Wireless LAN Howto http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/ and do ask questions if there's stuff you don't follow.

I've seen recent discussions about W-LAN support and troubles with I think Realtek that got sorted out. Knoppix 5.1.1 may actually be too old to benefit from that. I have vague memories of NDIS wrappers working well using drivers intended for older Windows versions.

What is solid experience based advice, when choosing a driver prefer :

1) Linux kernel driver (if it works eg) ne2k-pci, e100, forcedeth etc)
2) Linux source driver, provided by Vendor or other support
3) A well supported Vendor driver with a wrapper (if it works eg) Nvidia 3D drivers)
4) Linux kernel wrapper (running binary driver for other system eg) NDIS)
5) Knock off Vendor binary driver that works, but will be a pain when you want to upgrade kernel

Linux doesn't have a stable Driver ABI, but unfortunately some vendors ticking boxes, for commercial-political reasons don't want to introduce source, nor assist kernel developers writing drivers for their products.

Best to buy products with Linux friendly manufacturers submitting source drivers for kernel inclusion, but when this is not the case, choose drivers with care and only use mystery binary modules as last resort. In past they not only have been a maintenance problem for Admin, but caused instability on machine, and with tainted kernel your problem becomes impossible to debug.

[GNOME32]

cool. great advice. I've been jumping around distros a lot, and I think I'm going to stick with Ubuntu on this one. It actually sees my Wireless Network Adapter, but has a bug in a the network-manager. So, I'll just use wicd or something. But thanks very much for that advice, I'll take it to heed when troubleshooting for my sound/installing driver.
Purkinje

[RobLinux]

Have a look at the Ubuntu networking documentation on the Wiki. I had a 2nd ethernet card for old 3c509 Etherlink III card, and I could get the module loaded and the Interface configured without that damn applet!