I have never been more proud of myself :)

Hey guys,

So I got a new T60 and decided to dual boot XP and Feisty Fawn. I started the installation yesterday, and except for the partitioning, everything else went smoothly. When I boot up FF however I could not connect to my wireless internet because apparently the Atheros AR5008 card is not supported. Being a complete noob in Linux, I didn't even know what a terminal was or how to open one, let alone figure out how to make it work. But I decided to take a shot. It took me at least five hours, going through how to install svn, debian packages, ndiswrapper, madwifi, etc. And right now I am typing in Feisty Fawn on wirelessly connect laptop It was definitely worth the effort and I am so glad I took the plunge. I'm still a complete Linux noob but I'm getting better.

Sorry about all that rant, I'm just so excited .

 

Good for you! I don't know much about Linux, but I know a lot about sitting around for hours trying to get some computer related thing to work. nice job!

 

Good to hear! If you have any questions, we'd all be glad to help you out.

 

I have lots of things I want to change but for now the most pressing needs are:

1. My wireless does not automatically start on boot up. I have to manually do modprobe and iwconfig to get it running. The instruction I followed are here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_t...d_11a/b/g/n_Wireless_LAN_Mini_Express_Adapter

2. My LCD is widescreen 15.4 " 1280 x 800 but the highest resolution option in ubuntu is 1024 * 768 and everything looks out of proportion.

3. I understand there are at least two ways to install a package on ubuntu: either install debian binary packages or compile from source code. I have only succeeded in installing debian packages but failed miserably to compile from source code for madwifi and ndiswrapper. Is there a tutorial on how to compile from source code?

4. I wanted to update firefox, which prompts me to download a .tar.gz file. What do I do with it?

Thanks a bunch guys. I appreciate the help.

PS: My laptop is a T60 with X1400 128MB

 

I must disagree with you.
You are now NOT a linux noob

See my instructions in
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1976330&postcount=20

 

See the Ubuntu Guide sticky for links for installing the ATi drivers.

Code:

unpack the source file somewhere
cd into that directory
./configure
make
sudo make install

 

Hey thanks Lysander. I tried updating the driver with both Ubuntu and direct ATI update and it gave me more resolution options but they are all under my native resolution. Any idea what is going on?

 

Have you followed these instructions?:

Code:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-generic restricted-manager

Open the restricted drivers manager included in 7.04 "System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager" and select "ATI accelerated graphics driver".

 

Yes I did enable the ATI Accelerated graphics driver. A few options for resolution were added after I did this but none is the native res of the LCD.

 

Then you may have to modify your xorg.conf by hand to add in the native res.

You can thank AMD/ATi for that. I too have the displeasure of owning an X1400. Could your machine run the LiveCD? I had to use the Alternate CD.

 

Mine ran the LiveCD fine. In fact installation went completely smooth, except for the part where I had to figure out how the partition my tiny 80GB drive.

Can you point me to where I can learn how to edit the Xorg file?

 

To open xorg.conf type the following in the Terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Take a good look at the configuration file. The thing to remember about Linux is that all the configuration files are stored as text files like xorg, so the user can alter them as he/she pleases. From my experience working with xorg, it contains settings for the X server to load; the mouse, keyboard, and video drivers and such. Basically the entire user interface.

 

Hey guys,

Here is what I tried: sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. Like you said it basically resets the entire interface. I freaked out at first because at reboot, the X environment failed to boot. It took me a few tries to set appropriate resolutions. After reenabling ATI driver, I know run ubuntu at default resolution. Thanks a bunch!

 

Ok I am feeling extremely stupid. I installed Automatix last night and downloaded some stuff off it. This morning I woke up and found out that I lost sound on both Ubuntu and XP. I tried a lot of different solutions I found by googling. I also did a system restore on windows. But nothing works. What should I do

 

I've had problems before where the sound got muted while in Windows and since it apparently switched something in hardware, I had to unmute it from within Windows to get my Linux sound to work again (go figure).

I doubt that will resolve your issue though. What did you install with Automatix?

- Trip

 

Ok weird...I tried to restore my computer back to before Ubuntu was installed using the built in utility. It ended up making backup of today, rebooted and did not even restore the system like I asked. So I rebooted, access the Rescue and Recovery partition, popped in my backup CDs which froze my laptop. I had to hold the power to shut it down again and when I restarted, the sound was back...Talking about strange things...