KashmirGR

On my D500, I've had good success with both ndiswrapper and linuxant (I prefer ndiswrapper, since it is free) for wireless with theTrueMobile 1300. The 1300 uses a broadcom chipset of some sort (I don't remember the number off the top of my head). I

It is possibly to build a customized laptop. Many PC component distributors sell what are termed 'white box' laptops. These are unbranded laptops made by the same companies that make Dell, Toshiba, HP/Compaq, etc. The plastics might be changed, colors, buttons, but under the hood they are the same. ASUS is one name that makes these systems. These systems are bare bones configuration - no HD, CPU or memory. Typically the battery, optical drive and power supply are included. There are desknotes as well, as laptop form factor with no battery - avoid these. Prices on these bare bones systems range from about $500-$1000. Then you have to add the CPU, memory, etc. Price as always varies based on LCD size, chipset, processor supported and optical device chosen. These can be a good deal if you are looking at the $1500+ range. A white box will save you about $200 or so (rough calculation). On the lower end, a white box solution will actually end up costing you the same or more than a cheap Dell, HP, etc. On the low end, some cheap laptops from the likes of Dell can be souped up. A Dell 1100 (cheap, but heavy and not great battery life) can be upgraded on the processor, harddrive, optical and memory - hey I've seen this list before. I just replaced my 1100, but was looking at going from a Celeron to P4. As always, it's best to shop around and do your homework before buying.

The Dell TrueMobile 1150 was a rebadged Orinocco card that worked with the Hermes 802.11 drivers (from Prism2.5). Many of the newer Dell cards are using Broadcom chips as far as I can tell. These are harder to get working. There is a closed solution from a company called Linuxant, that costs $20. It creates a wrapper from the Window device driver. It's got a decent web interface (through localhost:18020) for management. I've noticed that about every 3-4 times I restart the machine, it fails to properly load, but I haven't seen any messages in /var/log. I usually just command line launch, and away you go. Another solution is the ndiswrapper project. This is actually my preferred solution (because it's free). I've gotten it compile and installed but cannot establish a connection. It sees the router but never links up. I'm still debugging this, but it has to wait for the weekend. All in all, I might suggest you go with a third party PCMCIA card, like an Orinocco. It's much less work because the are 'natively' supported in the wireless tools. I'm currently running a D500 with the Dell TrueMobile 1300 - which has one of the above mentioned broadcom chipsets.

Got a D500 for Christmas, and have spent entirely too much time getting 9.2 to work. But I do have the core system working now, just need some tweaks to polish it up. Install from CD works. Need to apply the 855patch for bios to allocate more than 1MB of video RAM (known issue with i855 chipset, fixed in XFree 4.3.99 and will be in 4.4). Google 855patch, dowload and follow instructions. I'm not sure if I'm going to try the 4.3.99 route or not, since I've got things working with the patch . . . ACPI appears to be working on some things (klaptop runs). Still looking to run some other tests. Anyone else have luck/suggestions with this? All Dell mini PCI wireless cards suffer from using non-Linux friendly vendors. I've gotten the TrueMobile 1300 working with Linuxant, and am in the process of getting ndiswrapper to work (can see the card with iwconfig, but can't establish a connection). ndiswrapper is my preferred route, because I don't want to pay the $20 to Linuxant. And about every third or fourth boot, linuxant doesn't start. Bluetooth. Drivers are properly loading, but haven't tried it out yet. DVD/CDRW - mplayer and cdrecord working (command line and gui) Things to do: rebuild kernel - playing with settings that give both smaller footprint than standard mandrake kernel, and still provides the correct functionality. Starting with 2.4.22 and will then try 2.6.X. Has anyone had success with a 2.6 kernel, and willing to offer suggestions? SpeedStep - need to get this working - again suggestions other things? Comments/suggestions/questions are welcome.