hard time with hardy
My new lappie rested in its bag for some days. I had no time to use it and may be I was even waiting for my opensolaris shipment to arrive. It was my third attempt to get free opensolaris shipment from SUN. Hoping atleast the third one would come.
I tried downloading from the website, but the download breaks. One of ilughyd members, theju tried from torrent, I guess he got a bad checksum. So, all in all last, trust was on SUN to grant me an opensolaris DVD.
The wait was getting longer each day and one fine day ubuntu released 8.04 LTS version. This tempted me to try out the distro and still keep waiting for opensolaris. ubuntu studio seemed a good deal to try out. The download was another long wait. 
After install affects:
1. Atheros wi-fi device was not detected.
2. Low quality sound.
Sound could be taken care of later, but lappie is really not mobile until I can go wireless. Limited by time, I left it in that state for few more days. The day I got back to it, I tried using the restricted drivers and madwifi.
Then I tried ndiswrapper deb package and used winXP drivers; no avail.
I was suggested to try compiling ndiswrapper from source rather than using packaed deb, at ‘The GNU/Linux Group‘
That attempt ended in CFLAGS error. Checked around in the internet to find lots of reports on CFLAG errors from various people trying to compile apps from source. Most of them are related to kernel 2.6.24
I was lost in thoughts on what can be done and lo - my opensolaris shipment arrived(release 1/08). Eager to get it run, I tried installing and ended up with bad/non-existing X server on the disk. I couldn’t get into GUI installation and I didnt want to spend time doing command installation and then patch my X.
It is not my natural self to upgrade / install new releases - Long lost habit. I wait for a month or two after the release and upgrade/install, only if necessary. Running low on time, I decided to pull debian4.0/kubuntu7.10 from my CD pack and get done with distro installation.
Atheros didnt work by default in it as well, but then ndiswrapper 1.51 did the job to an almost ok level. I say so because my wi-fi switch doesn’t blink, though I am able to connect to internet and it also works as toggle to switch on/off.
I’ll save the lights thingy for some other time. Got loads of other things to address on priority.
