Stupid question.

[Shannow]

Ended up being dumped with a "Steve will be able to fix that" problem this afternoon.

Aquaintance picked up a "laptop" for her daughter to do assignments and stuff the other day at a bargain price. Bought a pre-paid 3G wireless internet to go with it. Rang the numbers, paid the dues, and activated the dongle.

Couldn't get it to work, so my problem.

It's a notebook thing (no disk drives at all), and runs Linux and Open Office. It's a great little machine, and will do all of the things her daughter needs....except it won't recognise the dongle, and the MS/Apple software that's needed to interface it.

Internet provider doesn't provide proxy data etc for it, as the software is supposed to install an interface that will allow surfing and texting etc...'cept Linux doesn't recognise it.

Any ideas ?

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

MS/Apple software that's needed to interface it.


What is the dongle? The wireless card?

If the software is written only to support Windoze or Mac OS, then Linux isn't going to be able to use it; Many of these "install" packages that ISPs provide are just point and click versions of normal openly available connection protocols; when the ISP says "we don't support linux" what they usually mean is "we don't have help desk people with canned questions to ask" or "we don't have a P.A.C version to set up your computer" but linux will work fine if you are able to track down the providers connection info.

I am not very familiar with the currently wireless technologies, but I suspect this is the case.

Can you post hardware specifics.... Model, mfg, wireless provider.

With any Linux device it pays to find out what works with what, then buy it, rather than buying something, then trying to make it work; based on your career field, i suspect you already know this 8)

 

[simple_gifts]

http://kungfucodemonkey.blogspot.com/2009/01/3g-moblie-broadband-on-fedora-core-10.html

 

[StevieC]

No question is stupid... Only the ones that aren't asked!

 

[Shannow]

Thanks peeps.

By stupid question, it's one that I shouldn't be asking.

Woman that we know was watching an advertisment channel, and saw a deal that was too good to be true...a "brand new notebook" from a reputable manufacturer, chock full of word processing, spreadsheets etc. For only $300 delivered.

It's an Acer notebook, and it does come with a lot of stuff. Problem is it's Linux, Open Office, and Firefox...the latter two I use and love, the former I mess with from time to time.

It's not a bad product, at not a bad price, but certainly isn't a beginners (-1) level machine.

So she gets the 3g broadband, rings up, pays for it, then can't marry the two together...so I get dragged in (as fixit person).

The thing doesn't even have a disk drive, which makes the rest of it so much harder.

Thanks for the link to the Kung Fu site.

If I can find a remote disk drive, might try starting from scracth and rebuilding with ubuntu or Fedora...maybe not.

She was going to take it to a "computer person" today...and I won't stand in her way.

 

[OVERKILL]

You can put Windows on them. I've done it with an EEEPC. It's just not as straight forward as it would normally be for obvious reasons.

 

[firemachine69]

Ubuntu 8.10 is currently the only Linux distro that supports 3G (HSDPA/HSDA) "out of the box". It'll actually likely run smoother than the tel-net provider's software.

Of course, YMMV.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: firemachine69
Ubuntu 8.10 is currently the only Linux distro that supports 3G (HSDPA/HSDA) "out of the box". It'll actually likely run smoother than the tel-net provider's software.

Of course, YMMV.

The "Ubuntu Netbook Remix" can be checked out here: http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr

 

[Shannow]

She's decided to try to get a warranty refund on the machine, as it's "unusable" with the software that it came with.

Ridiculous claim, but after spending ten minutes on the phone with her arguing that it's 100% as advertised, I'm sure that they'll capitulate