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Free Operating Systems That Work with USB wifi Adapters
A small company upgraded their office computers and donated 4 of them to our church. They have been formatted. I would like to set up the computers with some free OS where a wifi usb adapter can be installed and configured with a minimum of problems. I can then give them to some families who have no computer but have wifi in there home.
I have tried using Ubuntu and could never get the adapters I have to work. I'm not very familiar with Linux flavors so I have given up on these OS's
The adapters I bought from Amazon are inexpensive as I have limited resources to apply to this project:
Etekcity® 5R2 Mini Wireless WiFi LAN USB Network Adapter: This device is a High Power Dongle with 802.11 B/G/N signals, 150 Mbps transmission rate, 2.
Edimax EW-7811Un 150 Mbps Wireless 11n Nano Size USB Adapter
Basically I just want the workstations to be able to access the internet with the adapters. Anything else would be a bonus...
Is my request unreasonable?
Thank you all in advance for your assistance.
I have tried using Ubuntu and could never get the adapters I have to work. I'm not very familiar with Linux flavors so I have given up on these OS's
The adapters I bought from Amazon are inexpensive as I have limited resources to apply to this project:
Etekcity® 5R2 Mini Wireless WiFi LAN USB Network Adapter: This device is a High Power Dongle with 802.11 B/G/N signals, 150 Mbps transmission rate, 2.
Edimax EW-7811Un 150 Mbps Wireless 11n Nano Size USB Adapter
Basically I just want the workstations to be able to access the internet with the adapters. Anything else would be a bonus...
Is my request unreasonable?
Thank you all in advance for your assistance.
LinuxUnix OSOperating Systems
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gheist
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Are you able to burn images to a re-writable CD? If so, I'd recommend to download so-called live images and burn them to CD so you can test from a re-writable if it works.
You could start with lubuntu for example (light weight Ubuntu), it runs nicely on (somewhat) old hardware: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/13.10/release/lubuntu-13.10-desktop-i386.iso
Other recommendation is Fedora LXDE: http://spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde/#downloads
Both start with a menu that lets you choose a live (test) version.
You could start with lubuntu for example (light weight Ubuntu), it runs nicely on (somewhat) old hardware: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/13.10/release/lubuntu-13.10-desktop-i386.iso
Other recommendation is Fedora LXDE: http://spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde/#downloads
Both start with a menu that lets you choose a live (test) version.
CentOS is an excellent desktop.
It's based on RedHat source, which can also be used as server or desktop configurations.
And best of all, its desktop's default GUI is GNOME 2, unlike most other new releases of linux distros, which default to the not-ready-for-prime-time-w
It's based on RedHat source, which can also be used as server or desktop configurations.
And best of all, its desktop's default GUI is GNOME 2, unlike most other new releases of linux distros, which default to the not-ready-for-prime-time-w
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Based on reports of problems with 14e4:43xx cards (for which Broadcom never released linux drivers) CentOS 6.5 is based on fedora 14, which is when those same problems appeared in fedora.
While CentOS 6.x doesn't officially support Chrome, they do support the open source Chromium (Chrome is NOT open source, which is the main reason they don't, and probably never will, support it)... here are test ports of Chromium 30 and 31:
http://people.redhat.com/tpopela/rpms/
and I expect to see v32 in the repos once there's enough feedback on those test versions.
While CentOS 6.x doesn't officially support Chrome, they do support the open source Chromium (Chrome is NOT open source, which is the main reason they don't, and probably never will, support it)... here are test ports of Chromium 30 and 31:
http://people.redhat.com/tpopela/rpms/
and I expect to see v32 in the repos once there's enough feedback on those test versions.
Most notably you must download firmwares for those network adapters (via floppynet or ethernet, at no indication on the system what is missing)
So download edimax zip driver
look around to see it is
RTL8192CU which is supported by mainline kernel
so delete .zip file, boot ubuntu live CD and connect to your access point...
So download edimax zip driver
look around to see it is
RTL8192CU which is supported by mainline kernel
so delete .zip file, boot ubuntu live CD and connect to your access point...
STA driver released by broadcom supports all of same cards supported by b43 drive (those pesky :43xx in each laptop)....
ubuntu proprietary driver enabler told me so.
ubuntu proprietary driver enabler told me so.
Ubuntu, Mint, KUbuntu, all good choices. Opensuse is good to.