Need Help With New Laptop- Linux

[Cluttermagnet]

(Bump)

 

Anyone? I'm stuck in the circular intellectual process outlined above. Some uncertainties are holding me back.

BTW Betty has agreed- we buy a small hard drive and a USB2 enclosure and make an external HD to store the images, etc.

No eSATA port on this lappy, apparently.

 

 

BTW on a different but related subject, I tried an Ubuntu 11.04 CD but it wouldn't boot past the 'try it/install it' window. Bad CD, perhaps. I'll burn a couple more, 11.04 and 11.10. Linux Mint 11 still working great, fortunately.

 

I'm still liking the laptop, actually. I think Betty will too.

Current Ethernet up time ~7.5 hours and going strong. Looks like Ethernet is no longer a problem.

Edited October 28, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Urmas]

Just replacing the hard drive with one for Linux sounds attractive. OTOH I am very reluctant to go inside this lappy. I have zero experience with servicing lappies.

Don't be. Reluctant. Looky here:

 

Long version:

http://download.lenovo.com/UserFiles/UserG...de%20V1.0_1.pdf

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/upgrading-me...vo-g570-laptop/

 

EDIT: if the Lenovo (.pdf) linky above gives you "file not found", try THIS

 

Condensed teaser:

 

 

⇒

 

 

⇒

 

 

 

⇒

 

 

⇒

 

 

⇒

 

Remove the screws and detach the metal frame from the hard disk drive.

 

Almost there... it's all downhill with "the other way around":

 

Attach the metal frame to a new hard disk drive and tighten the screws.

⇒

Put the hard disk drive gently into the hard disk drive bay with the tab

facing upwards and the connectors facing each other; then push it firmly

into space.

⇒

Reinstall the frame fixing screws.

⇒

After aligning the attachment clips with their matching gaps, reinstall the

compartment cover.

⇒

Tighten the screws.

 

Looking at the images, I have to say I feel envious. This is a "service friendly" laptop. "Everything" under one cover, heck, even the fan is accessible for dusting. I have seen A LOT worse.

 

 

Your wifi card is called "Half Mini Card", by the way.

 

 

Almost like RAM, non? The only difference -- "handling wise" are the two "snap fasteners" (antenna connectors). If you decide to swap the card, before doing anything else, check (by pulling vewwy gently) if there is any (an inch or so) "extra cord" available. If there is, first pull out the Broadcom card, then undo the poppers. Likewise, with the new card, first fasten the poppers, then push the card into place. Them poppers can be a bit "tight", see? Easier this way.

 

 

[Urmas]

Linux Mint 11 still working great, fortunately.

Then go with it -- takes five minutes to tweak its desktop to a state recognizable to Betty.

 

"I am willing to invest 5-6 hours doing all the crap that Windows makes you do during setup, just in order to make proprietary backup disks of Windows"

Not going to take quite that long. Invest three(+) hours, and you have set it up (meaning, you have a desktop, you can log in, nothing more -- nothing more needed here), recovery DVDs burned, and partitions shrunk (if you decide to take the dual boot way, that is).

 

[Cluttermagnet]

You're very persuasive, Urmas. I'm actually a pretty good tech. It's just that lappies scare me because I've never been into one before. The 'how to' looks pretty easy, I must admit. The photo shows so much! Everything is very modular. I had no idea they had made it that easy. Nothing scary in the install/uninstall dialog. Also neat that they should make the wifi modular like that. Too easy!

 

I was pricing external USB2 enclosures and cheap, low end, bare, 3.5 in drives tonight. Only 40-50 dollars gets you plenty of external memory over mid-speed USB2. That's a storage only option, obviously- just a place to park the images and such.

 

Now I think I'll shop internal laptop drives as well. Without a doubt, the drive swap makes the most sense. OTOH the dual boot is also very attractive for various reasons. My head is spinning a little. No rush on any of this. I'll think about it all some more...

 

Now I'll give this a rest, I'm leaving for home, bbl... Thanks!

[striker]

The choice is yours Clutter. With Urmas' excellent tutor it should be a snap to swap the hard disk drive; that way nothing is going to happen to the default one with all its stuff on it, just safe it in a safe place. With the new hard disk drive in place all options are open to start with, if you opt for leaving the default drive in you're in for a nice little partitioning game for which I almost certainly know your Lenovo wouldn't be that happy afterwards if you ever need to recover the thing to factory defaults. If I were in your shoes I would opt for the route with a new and fresh hard disk drive, swap it with the default one and the game playing aka linux adventure can begin.

[Eggdog]

I now so dislike Windows that I haven't allowed Win7 to even boot once on this box. Muzzled it, I did. Locked it in the basement, I did. I know it's there- it tried to boot when I first powered up the laptop. I throttled it. All I wanted was to get the doggone CD drive open. Later, it tried to boot again, complaining that it had been interrupted during its first boot attempt. I'm sure it is very sincere about wanting to do minor repairs to itself, boot up, and immediately take over my computing experience. I'll have nothing to do with that. It'll get to see daylight on my time and on my terms. So, ultimately, I truly am denying myself the opportunity to use Win7 as a diagnostic tool as I go through my early Linux encounters on this box. And yes, that is ultimately kind of stupid, I admit it- but that is just how I feel.

 

When a new copy of Windows wakes up, it's like a baby. There is a lot of puking and wailing and the baby wants to be taken care of. But it is way less adorable than a human baby, and it's real hard to bond with it

I have nothing to add. I just wanted to say thank you for this spectacularly elegant essay.

[striker]

Watch it : it is IP of Cluttermagnet

[abarbarian]

It's just that it is a laptop -- [routinely] using an external media might not be logistically ideal. Plus, it slows things down a bit.

 

onederer in post 13 may have the best solution.

 

Is Urmas correct ??

 

You have a lappy with a 5400 hdd which will be slow and DDR3 ram which will be fast, very fast if you run a GNU/Linux OS live distro with the "run from ram option enabled. You could very easily shrink the Windows partition on your hdd and use the extra space for "persistant storage" for the live os.

 

Benefits,

 

You have an original untouched Windows, good selling point if you need to sell.

Running a live os you have greater security.

You get a os on steroids.

Would take very little time to set up with no screws etc etc.

Cheap option. 4 GB usb here in the UK approx £ 5.

 

Against,

 

Probably a faster start up time than Windows 7

No anti virus to update.

 

just my humble opinion.

 

 

My niece has run Knoppix with KDE of a stick on her works laptop for nearly a year. She does have a problem though with me asking if it is working ok every now and again. Her usual reply now is " how many times do I have to tell you it is working ok and no I don't have any problems,(testily) how many times do I have to tell you ! Your not(concernedly) getting alzheimer's are you. At which point I slap her with a salted herring and tell her not to be so cheeky and show respect for her elders.

[Urmas]

Is Urmas correct ??

He seldom is.

 

[Traditional] 2.5" laptop HDDs are slower (5400 rpm, typically) than 3.5" disks. Now... why do I still prefer "an internal-disk-solution"? Well, if that laptop is going to be used as a laptop (i.e. as a portable/luggable device), less is more when it comes to "extra parts". I used to have an old laptop without an internal wireless card, so I had to use a USB wifi stick. No problem when the lappy is (and stays) on the desk, but -- as an example -- surfing the net lying on my bed was a tad awkward; the USB connectors don't like it very much when mucho torque is applied.

 

So my preference is... um... practical, rather than technical.

 

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

Of all things physical and metaphysical,

Of all things human and all things super-human,

Of all true manifestations of the head,

Of the heart, of the soul,

That the life is recognizable in its expression,

That form ever follows function. This is the law.

Louis Sullivan

 

[abarbarian]

[Traditional] 2.5" laptop HDDs are slower (5400 rpm, typically) than 3.5" disks. Now... why do I still prefer "an internal-disk-solution"? Well, if that laptop is going to be used as a laptop (i.e. as a portable/luggable device), less is more when it comes to "extra parts". I used to have an old laptop without an internal wireless card, so I had to use a USB wifi stick. No problem when the lappy is (and stays) on the desk, but -- as an example -- surfing the net lying on my bed was a tad awkward; the USB connectors don't like it very much when mucho torque is applied.

 

So my preference is... um... practical, rather than technical.

 

You make a very good point. An a new hdd would be the best solution so far.

 

More interesting is what were you surfing whilst moving around on the bed

[Urmas]

More interesting is what were you surfing whilst moving around on the bed

Scone recipes.

 

[abarbarian]

[Cluttermagnet]

Hi, All-

Having had time to think about some of the options for this laptop, I've decided on a short term goal. There is some irony here.

 

Betty is completely sold on Ubuntu and/or Linux in general. She simply doesn't care about Windows any more. So she would have no problem accepting an internal HD swap having Linux only. It is Clutter, ironically, who clings to the dual-boot option. I'm far more likely to want to use Win7 on this laptop- to run the occasional scientific program written for Windows only. I have one specific program on hand right now that I'd like to try- whenever I can get to it. There will likely be more. There is also the cost factor. Short term, I'm getting the pieces to put together an external USB2 hard drive for storage only. Images of Win7 will live there. I ordered a USB2 to IDE enclosure and a modest WD 160G 3.5in IDE drive. I just went with what was cheap (but not too cheap). In the final analysis, an external drive has greater utility for me than a second internal drive- short term or long term.

 

In a few days, when I have the eternal drive, I will shrink the Win7 partition and image it, then install Mint or Ubuntu into the space gained. There is no hurry. Betty is perfectly willing to wait until this has been done. She has her desktop upstairs. I will cross that wireless 'bridge' when I get to it, but I'm pretty confident that wireless is going to work with the stock Broadcom wifi. In the meantime, the laptop can be used with a live CD. BTW neither of us ever use wireless. I just want to have the capability. Normally, our two respective routers are locked down- no wifi.

 

For a longer term goal, I do think the internal hard drive swap would be a good idea. I'll be searching the net to get an idea of what's available at what prices. I'm going to watch for sales. These do come up at bargain prices from time to time. I'll wait and pounce when the right one comes along. Having seen how easy it is to swap an internal drive, I no longer have any hesitancy about doing that. But ironically, a dual-booting machine does occasionally have, ahhh, utility. :">

 

I do want to start playing with learning bootable flash drive OS's as well. I can envision doing a lot of that, in fact.

 

I will definitely try to get the reinstallation DVD's from Lenovo, 'just in case'. She paid for Win7, we ought to have it. If I ever screw up Windows so badly that the DVD is needed, so be it. Otherwise, I intend to lean on imaging heavily, on the Windows side. Once I get Win7 all cleaned up of all the hideous bloatware, I'd rather reinstall from a clean image of that if at all possible. The Lenovo- generated DVD reinstall would be a lot less helpful, though it is a good last resort. Frankly I'd prefer not to let the Lenovo recovery software on this hard drive run things- ever. Either way, they are going to set it back up their way. I much prefer it my way.

[securitybreach]

Sounds like a plan

[Cluttermagnet]

A few hours ago I took the just-arrived external case and 160G IDE hard drive and assembled them. All went smoothly and the Lenovo laptop had no difficulty seeing the drive over USB2. Partitioning it to all FAT32 partitions went well. I made a test file and moved it to one of the partitions on the drive. Success.

 

I was going to title this post "Welcome to Smoking Crater Regional Computer Depot",

But it's really not nearly that bad. There have been bumps in the road, however...

 

I launched gparted, swallowed hard, and set it to shrink the Win7 partition down to 100G. This seemed to go OK, and indeed Win7 eventually proved able to boot.

 

Then, using a BootitNG CD, I tried to image the now smaller Win7 partition to the external drive. Bing was having nothing to do with that, kept claiming the drive was full or whatever. I guess it doesn't have access to the drive maybe? USB not operating at the primitive level of that utility? I dunno.

 

So I launched gparted again and went to work, to finish off the planned expansion of sda3 to make room for some Linux partitions. Most of this went well, with the exception that I think the Lenovo repair partition sda5 within sda3 got hosed somehow. Seems to have started out being 28.92G used out of a 29G partition. When gparted got done with it, there was only 3.00G of data showing in the now moved sda5, now sized 29.38G, a bit larger.. No idea what happened there. I imagine the Lenovo on-disk repair has been broken. FWIW, the transfer of data from sda5 took quite a while, and it was clearly 28.92G of data that was slowly being moved from himem to lower mem. And then I'm left with 3.00G??? Whaaaa???

 

My other purpose in finishing off the partition work was to create a pretty big FAT32 partition within sda3 to park images in. This was accomplished, and when I later had Bing image Win7 to that new partition, everything went well- I got my first image. Later I confirmed I'll be able to move images off the main 500G drive and into the 160G external drive manually, after the fact. Bing, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to want to write directly to that drive. Images ran 7.1G in size.

 

So where this leaves me, I plan next to launch Win7 just long enough to see if it is working or mortally wounded. I have a hunch it still works, but the Lenovo repair utility is now hosed. Obviously, I should now take the time to try to get a restore DVD from Lenovo. I think it is going to be a slow process getting through this all. In the meantime, I suppose I might go ahead and put a copy of Mint 11 in the three new partitions sda7, sda8, and sda9 (root, swap, home).

 

* * * My next question for you guys- where should I have grub2 install? Maybe in root? Usually I just let it install in the MBR, I believe, wherever grub normally gets put.

 

I'll try to stay philosophical about it all. In time I will probably be able to get Win7 and Linux to coexist on the original 500G drive. There's a chance I may just get a second drive and put Linux on there, but I'd sort of like to keep access to Windows, since this is the only recent copy Betty and I have between us. It would be kind of inconvenient to have to swap drives just to run Windows occasionally.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

When I finally fired up Win7, everything went OK. Windows ran CHKDSK and eventually was happy with housekeeping arrangements. I created a user for Betty and then shut it down and successfully took a second image. McAffee tried to update itself online, but failed because I had the Ethernet plug pulled. Heh!

 

 

Urmas- Do you think the Terminal command

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

would also work in Mint 11? Or is that only for modifying Ubuntu 11.10 to avoid Unity?

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

Then go with it -- takes five minutes to tweak its desktop to a state recognizable to Betty.

 

 

Not going to take quite that long. Invest three(+) hours, and you have set it up (meaning, you have a desktop, you can log in, nothing more -- nothing more needed here), recovery DVDs burned, and partitions shrunk (if you decide to take the dual boot way, that is).

 

 

Another irony- when I finally allowed Win7 to boot, it took me maybe 20 minutes. Half of the time was for Windows to run CHKDSK. The other half was to create a user for Betty. Perhaps the reason is that I had pulled the Ethernet cable and did not let Windows see the internet. Therefore, no endless downloads, no registration, etc. I assume I will have to go online and register before 30 days, however.

 

[striker]

Another irony- when I finally allowed Win7 to boot, it took me maybe 20 minutes. Half of the time was for Windows to run CHKDSK. The other half was to create a user for Betty. Perhaps the reason is that I had pulled the Ethernet cable and did not let Windows see the internet. Therefore, no endless downloads, no registration, etc. I assume I will have to go online and register before 30 days, however.

 

That's way to long. On my laptop it just takes around 1 minute to boot. After that I most often let the system do its things like coming out of the sleeping bag, pulling up the trousers and have a bite .... just kidding, but all it should take for a clean W7 system with reasonable specs to boot is something between 45 secs and one and a half minute.

 

There's nothing to do with regard to registration as far as I can remember. The system is already activated and registration is not necessary. Why should you? To let Redmond know you are one of their consumers? If they offer you'll get some extras after having registered, well that is known to be the case indeed: what you'll get as extra(s) is headaches and malware when you're not very careful, but really useful stuff? Nah! Nothing at all. The useful stuff you may want is available online without registration.

 

The problem why it might take that long to boot the machine might be the partitioning scheme got mixed up, but what I suspect at this time is that McAfee stuff hosing the system. It'll try to get its definitions updated and that may be a truck load. So when you had the plug pulled it couldn't find a thing let alone the clue to see that it's door was closed , so it just stubbornly tries to get the updates endlessly.

 

BTW: check the rights of user Betty, it probably has admin rights. I would create another user with admin rights and from within that one change user Betty account to a standard user account. That way when she logs into Windows she has only standard rights and not admin rights. Never use the account with admin rights unless you absolutely have to, for daily activity use the account with standard rights.

[Guest LilBambi]

If Windows 7 had not booted before, it's not that unusual. It has much to do that first boot. And the chkdsk does take some time and does need to do that after the resizing of the partitions in gparted so it knows its current boundaries that are now different than the last time it checked.

 

Next time it boots Windows 7, it will go much smoother and take less time. You will need to uninstall McAfee and install Microsoft Security Essentials which is always free for home use and never needs to be registered or has unreasonable limitations. And after it gets its big update and installs and runs it's initial scan, then get all Windows updates, install CCleaner and run it. Get Malwarebytes and install that and get updates and run initial scan (decline trial during the install).

 

Takes some time but you need to get rid of all the crap ware on that system that you don't want. The OEMs put a bunch of crap on there. Much of which does try to get to the web on boot even if to just ping their servers or whatever. You know, remove toolbars, trials that you won't be using, etc. from Programs in the Control Panel.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Clutter,

 

If you want the GRUB menu to come up when you boot this machine, you'll need to allow GRUB to install on the MBR of the PRIMARY hard drive (the one that currently has the Win 7 bootloader on it). Otherwise, you'll have to boot your Linux with a disk every time.

 

I'm not normally a member of the MS cheering section, but I had ZERO issues with my Win 7. It booted in about 25 seconds on the first ever boot. It took me another minute or so to create a user account. I then installed MS Security Essentials and set up my auto update stuff. Voila! All told, I invested about 1 hour in the 1st boot/set-up of my Win 7. It's been truckin' along with nary an issue for months now. It's really not a bad OS.

 

Anywho...

[abarbarian]

This is a very good and well thought of tool for doing,

 

What it says on the tin

 

[Cluttermagnet]

Thanks, guys. Great info as usual. Well, let me correct something I said above. Obviously my writing was not clear, as you all took it differently than I meant it. The initial Win7 boot took maybe 1 minute or so, just as you all said. What I was trying to convey was that, instead of the dreaded 5-6 hours forced work I had expected, my total time on task was only about 20 minutes. And near half of that was letting Windows run CHKDSK and sweep up and try to regain some of its dignity. Heh!

 

I'll take a look at all the suggested cleanup utilities and security stuff. Yes, Fran, I have heard that the Win native security utility is actually pretty good these days. I will uninstall McAffee. Although I'm not planning on letting Win7 see internet much, after the initial updates, I do plan to look at what (free) utilities might serve me well. In the old days, I remember running an AV utility, a software firewall, and one or more anti- malware utilities. I'll take a re-look at that field now.

 

Striker, the dropping of 'must register' is something that passed me right by. My last good snapshot is from the early XP days, when Windows crippled itself after 30 days if you didn't check in at Interplanetary Anti-Piracy Software Control Central and get their Redmond blessings. It is refreshing to know that I will no longer have to submit to that indignity. BTW yes, striker, I will create an admin Clutter and then make Betty a regular user.

 

Does anyone still run Windows registry cleaners? Or do these various decrapifier utilities offer to take care of that for you these days?

 

I hear that one no longer needs to defrag these days, that Win7 will take care of that for you?

 

Sorry, some of this stuff really belongs in the Windows forum, but to me it's all a side show. Main tent: Linux. I can see I'm going to have to put in some time to get Win7 in shape, mainly free of bloatware/ nagware/ foistware, etc. Then the focus switches back to Linux and on OS usability as opposed to constant OS maintenance.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

I just installed Mint 11 to this Lenovo570 laptop. Mint had something like 218 updates for me, right away. I promptly put NoScript and Adblock Plus on Firefox. BTW just noticed Mint 11 installs FF 7. Most of my other boxes have the ancient FF 3.6.

 

I noticed one minor problem on the newly installed FF 7, I have lost the NoScript icon, usually on the bottom right corner of the screen. Therefore I can't check to see what permissions I have on Scot's site. Problem is when I open up a compose window to post, a lot of stuff is missing above the compose window. I've never seen this behavior before. Would like to get those features back. No smilies, no quotes, etc. I seem to remember I clicked away some sort of lower taskbar which I believe might have contained the NoScript Icon.

 

My question is- how do I get back access to NoScript so I can check permissions on web pages I'm viewing?

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Guest LilBambi]

Clutter,

 

Actually if you have a NAT or Stateful packet firewall hardware router, just use Windows 7 built in Firewall, it is actually a pretty good one and does both ways now unlike in WinXP where it was only one way.

 

RE: NoScript finding it to modify in Windows 7. If it's like Windows and Mac, just go to Firefox addons under the Tools menu, and you will see the extensions, click on the preferences for NoScript, and look under the appearance tab.

 

I have been using Google Chrome in Linux of late...with Scripting on an 'ask me' basis, along with Adblock Plus (Beta in Google Chrome), and Flash Block and WOT. Mainly due to the version-ing issue you noted with so many distros and I really dislike Ice Weasel because some of my favorite extensions don't work in Ice Weasel.

[Cluttermagnet]

Thanks, Fran-

 

I managed to get Scot's Forums 'permanently permitted', but my NoScript icon is still missing. BTW with that permission, the missing features of the compose window have indeed returned. Let's just say I can get to where I can grant permissions, but it is by a roundabout way. Missing is the noscript icon which used to live in the lower, RH corner and nothing I can see in any pane of the Noscript options seems able to make it come back. Maybe it was 'not there' in the first place. It certainly is in all my FF 3.6 installs. I suspect this is all in some way releted to the somewhat lame standard desktop that came with Mint 11. That one is set up a little like the look and feel of KDE or Windows, perhaps. I think that if I can get it changed over to the more familiar gnome 2 desktop that things will behave more like I expect and am used to.

 

I'm still hoping to hear from Urmas. I asked him if I can use a 'desktop changer' command line trick that applies to Ubuntu 11.10 in this different situation with Mint 11. The tip was a way to abandon the Unity toolbar thingie that apparently so many dislike. (See post #106 above)

 

The question is, can I apply the Terminal command

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

in my case. I'm not running Ubuntu and I don't have that pesky Unity thingie.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

clutter@clutter-Lenovo-G570 ~ $ sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
[sudo] password for clutter: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package gnome-session-fallback

 

 

Ahhh- if the Mint 11 CD were in the drive, would that make a difference?

 

BTW remember that Mint 11 is now installed on this lappy. No more live CD sessions.

 

Synaptic returns nothing in a search for "gnome-session-fallback".

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

I think that refers to blacklisting an Acer module which can screw up wireless on non-Acer machines. The more recent kernels will provide a Broadcom driver for the BCM 4313 which may work out of the box. I'd keep my wired connection handy though.

 

On my just-installed Mint 11, there was a box offering to install the Broadcom wireless driver. Remembering back, my distro, being on CD, left out the proprietary stuff. Part of the volume name includes the words "nocodecs". So anyway, the box mentions my BCM4313 and a bunch of other model Broadcom stuff. I clicked yes, it installed it. Will actually check the wireless 'later', probably tomorrow when I have time.

 

So, status up to now- Mint 11 had no trouble with Ethernet running either live CD or installed. wireless we will know real soon. (I bet it does work).

Edited November 3, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[abarbarian]

CC Cleaner

 

Use this in Windows for general cleaning including the reg, remember to accept the chance to backup every time you use it.

 

The other place I visit has very good things to say about Windows 7 own defragger. No personal experience as I use Diskeeper 10 which seems to be brilliant at what it does.

[Guest LilBambi]

CC Cleaner

 

Use this in Windows for general cleaning including the reg, remember to accept the chance to backup every time you use it.

 

The other place I visit has very good things to say about Windows 7 own defragger. No personal experience as I use Diskeeper 10 which seems to be brilliant at what it does.

Actually, I would be VERY careful using any automated reg cleaning, even from CCleaner. The program does a great job at cleaning log files, temp files, various levels of temporary files on the system and you may want to use the occasional surgical reg cleaning from CCleaner, but be very careful. Surgical strike type cleaning is about the only safe way to use registry cleaners of any kind. IMHO.

 

Clutter, I no longer have a NoScript on the status bar, but the one in the menu bar to the right along with WOT and FlashBlock works the same way. I would suggest using it there.

[raymac46]

On my just-installed Mint 11, there was a box offering to install the Broadcom wireless driver. Remembering back, my distro, being on CD, left out the proprietary stuff. Part of the volume name includes the words "nocodecs". So anyway, the box mentions my BCM4313 and a bunch of other model Broadcom stuff. I clicked yes, it installed it. Will actually check the wireless 'later', probably tomorrow when I have time.

 

So, status up to now- Mint 11 had no trouble with Ethernet running either live CD or installed. wireless we will know real soon. (I bet it does work).

Yes I don't think you are going to have a problem. The newer kernels handle Broadcom a lot better and the situation will continue to improve as I think a real FOSS Broadcom driver is coming along nicely.

Kernel 2.6.33.7 that was in Mandriva 2010.2 handled Broadcom 4312 right out of the box with no sweat on my Inspiron Mini 12. Good luck!. Don't forget to use good encryption on your router and client machine.