I got my very first computer recently: a refurbished Dell Inspiron 531 PC with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core processor, a 250 GB hard drive, and 1 GB of RAM for $250 for my birthday, and it came pre-installed with Windows Vista.
After my dad looked at Vista for a bit, I got a CD that I burned the ISO for Ubuntu 7.10 onto and installed the operating system over Vista, ridding my computer of it. I then asked my dad to order a free “Powered by Ubuntu” sticker to paste over the Vista one, though it took a while to arrive.
To make a long story short, my wireless connection just didn’t work. I sought some help from the Ubuntu Forums and a nice person there helped me through private messages. In the end, it didn’t end up working out so well. However, I happened to have a ZyXEL G-220 v2 wireless USB adapter that we got for free from Verizon. They gave it to us when my mom called them to fix the wireless connection on her laptop that uses Windows XP when I was at school one day. I think the guy Verizon sent out just gave her the wireless USB adapter because he had no clue how to fix it himself.
When I came back from school that day, it only took a minute or two to make the connection work again without the USB adapter, so I kept the adapter for myself, not that I knew I’d use it again at the time. When I plugged the USB adapter into my computer, it worked perfectly. No need for ndiswrapper; it works as soon as you plug it in. I’m still having some problems with the connection, but they’re minor and the connection never cuts off after it starts working (yet). If you’re using Ubuntu, are having trouble with your wireless connection, and want an easy fix, I highly suggest this using this device. If you don’t want to buy one, then you might want to check out the Absolute Beginner Talk section of the Ubuntu forums for help.
Vista fills me with dread. If it weren’t for the fact that my laptop was a prize, and it didn’t come with a lot of documentation for the various bits and pieces, I’d switch to some Linux variant. Ubuntu didn’t quite fit the bill after 30 minutes of messing with it, but I was just running off of a live CD rather than storing a configuration to a hard drive.
I noticed you wrote:
This might be useful to you: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDPersistence
I did it once a while ago because I didn’t have my own computer at the time. I hope that tutorial is useful if you want to keep trying Ubuntu out.
Could be useful. I’ll go look for the live CD. Or burn another one.
I have Vista at the moment, I’ve turned off UAC (User Account Control), Firewalls, Auto-Updates, and the Security. Now every program I have works completely fine, and I can play games much better. =) If anyone needs help on how to turn it off, try to get to me through Alex. ^^