brand new linux user trying to get the wifi working on this laptop

[kb2crk]

i picked up a n older dell c-840 laptop dirt cheap on ebay. the hard drive i am using used to have xp home on it in an old compaq. i have installed freespire on it and after a little research i have found that madwifi should work for my belkin f5d7010 ver. 5100 wireless notebook card. the computer is a Dell latitude c-840 with a p4m at 1.6 ghz.
i have tried several times to download madwifi but when i go to unzip it it says it cant be saved on the drive.
this is the first time i have attempted linux. any help would be appreciated as i really have no clue how to go forward with it.

[kb2crk]

ok i know i am doing something wrong but i dont have a clue what it is. i just tried downloading google chrome and it says it should self install.
i get the same error message as i did when trying to unzip the madwifi stuff. any help would be greatly appreciated.

[kb2crk]

tried to update the firefox browser and it is a no go also. would i be better off dumping the freespire and loading up ubuntu? i have a copy of that also. i used the freespire because it gave me the option of saving what was already on the hard drive. nothing ended up being saved anyway so a clean sweep is not out of the question. any help at all is greatly appreciated.

and a quick edit. trying to update the freespire now and even that seems to be a no go.

[W4GPL]

I'm not going to engage in a Linux distribution pissing match, but if you expect any wide spread support, using Freespire is a really bad way to go. It has like 1% of the Linux market. You might find Ubuntu works with your wireless out of the box, though I prefer Fedora. Almost all major Linux distros provide the option of maintaining you existing OS installs (e.g. Windows).

I couldn't begin to offer you any advice regarding Freespire -- not all Linux distros are created equal.

[kb2crk]

thank you for your honest opinion. i have never messed with linux in any way shape or form so it is all new to me. ubuntu would have partitioned the hard drive if xp didn't have too much of it tied up. i had a freespire disk and it supposedly had a save data function on the install. that is why i tried it. i think tomorrow it will be time to wipe it clean and put the ubuntu on it. i may try fedora down the road. i figure i can only learn by trying and it looks like freespire was a mistake. thank you for the advice.

[W4GPL]

I've been using RedHat based (Fedora) installations since I was 13 years old. It's what I know best and I'm a creature of habit. I concede it's not the most "newbie" friendly distribution. Fedora adheres to a strict anti-patent/anti-commercial package (software) policy, which makes you go thru a 3rd party for various functions. Ubuntu has a more liberal policy and very much focuses on the end user -- Fedora considers themselves a test base for future version of RedHat Enterprise Linux & RedHat Desktop.

The majority of Linux users on this forum use Ubuntu - I'm in the minority by all accounts.

[kb2crk]

thanks again.
linux is new to me and this is the first time i have ever messed with it. hell i didn't mess around much with dos until i started screwing around with the old motorola radios. i am one who is comfortable messing around with the hardware trying new things but for the most part a newbie at the software. maybee in the future i may delve deeper in but for now i am going to try to stick to the K.I.S.S. principle until i get a little more comfortable with it. i really dont want to have to try and find a copy of XP pro again.....lol

[W4GPL]

You can always go with VirtualBox.. let's you run an OS within an OS. So you can experiment with as many distributions as you want without having to worry about partition issues. Just a thought..

[kb2crk]

i may try that but so far i plan on dumping freespire. i cant get it to update or load anything new. i cant even get firefox to update in it and it is having problems with most of the sites i frequent. i will be trying ubuntu tomorrow when i get up and i do believe it will do better.
thanks for the tips.
paul

[kb2crk]

it is up and running on ubuntu... freespire is gone. it is running great and yes ubuntu found and installed the belkin wifi card on install. with this computer running like this i may go ahead and change my 2.2 ghz dell laptop to linux. ubuntu updated and flash players loaded. google chrome in use now.
thanks for the help.