My long overdue venture into the realm of computer programming...

[Virgil0211]

That isn't what I meant. You need to do the update, yes, but instead of running the entire upgrade go into Synaptic and JUST install the upgraded wireless drivers.

So... what exactly would I need to look for?

(Remember, I'm still a n00b.) ._.

Never mind. I'm giving up on this. I fix one major bug only to come across another major bug that I can't seem to fix. I've tried just about every other solution could find. I'll give the next few distributions a try, but I'm not going to waste hours at a time to get this thing to work when I can spend far less time to get the things I would use it for (coding, internet browsing, using documents, etc) to work in Windows 7. Unless they fix the glitches they seem to be having with Nvidia and Raltek (or whatever the name of that wireless card manufacturer is), I'm not going to be utilizing it until I get a different computer. Who knows. Maybe after I cool off, I'll give Fedora a try.

[Virgil0211]

And not 12 hours later, I'm installing Kubuntu. I have no conviction when it comes to this sort of thing...

The video still doesn't work, but at least it can use my wireless card, so I can use it for schoolwork and programming. I really hope 11.10 fixes those problems. Who knows. Maybe I'll end up having to program a driver for it at some point, if I ever get that far.

By the way, Shane, I added you on Google+. I'm the 'Marduke Von Haskell' guy (also my facebook name, and not my real name. Figured it'd be good to change it in case I ever go for a job interview or something.)

[Virgil0211]

I did it! I found the solution to my problem!

Step 1: Abandon Ubuntu.

Step 2: Install Fedora 15.

Step 3: Install Nvidia drivers.

Step 4: Go have a drink to celebrate. :-P

[MrBogosity]

Cool! Glad you found a solution.

[Virgil0211]

Cool! Glad you found a solution.

Nevermind. False alarm. It still tears on fullscreen and on anything above 360p. I'm just about ready to give up on this. At least video's "watchable" now, but it's a far cry from taking the place of Windows as my primary OS. I just realized that I still have the serial key for Windows 7 on the bottom of my laptop, so maybe I can experiment with running W7 in virtual box or something. It's still frustrating that Windows 7 is able to get my laptop to view up to 720p fullscreen video without difficulty (even 1080p if I temporarily kill explorer), but I can't get linux to go any further than that. There was a program called IDSWrapper I'd heard about a couple of years back that allowed people to use Windows drivers in Linux for wireless cards in order to get past a bug in many versions of Ubuntu. I actually saw a page where someone was suggesting that they develop a feature like that for hardware in general in later versions of Ubuntu. It got down-voted rather quickly, and some of the commentors said things that I immediately wanted to put in fail quotes. Apparently, some people think this will lead companies to stop making drivers for linux, or that they need to keep things pure and open-source. As for the former, if the Windows drivers can already work, then so what? That leaves time and energy to be spent doing other things. Then, if Linux manages to get a greater market share because *gasp!* it's easier to get your hardware to work with it, then maybe companies will start putting more effort into making dedicated Linux drivers in order to better serve that market. You know, rather than telling someone to 'go and get a better laptop' when they come to you for help (actual experience with the Ubuntu chat-room here).

Sorry for the wall of text. I just kept getting frustrated trying to deal with this. I was hoping that I could switch over to Linux completely at some point. For now, though, it looks like I'll primarily be using it for programming and such. It's still the best OS I've used for learning Python and such.

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, dealing with the hardcore Linuxites can be frustrating.

I believe what you're looking for is "ndiswrapper." Check your driver disk or online to see if there are driver files that end in .inf and .sys. Those are the NDIS driver files.

Ndiswrapper should be in the Ubuntu repositories. Install 10.10 then install ndiswrapper, and also there should be a GUI utility to help you install them.

[Virgil0211]

Yeah, dealing with the hardcore Linuxites can be frustrating.

I believe what you're looking for is "ndiswrapper." Check your driver disk or online to see if there are driver files that end in .inf and .sys. Those are the NDIS driver files.

Ndiswrapper should be in the Ubuntu repositories. Install 10.10 then install ndiswrapper, and also there should be a GUI utility to help you install them.

I'll try that next time. I jut need to take a little break from trying to fix this thing. Clear my head a bit.

But like I said, I don't understand why more linuxites don't see how useful a tool like that could be. Almost all of Linux's hardware incompatibility problems, gone.

Makes me wish I could somehow breed Windows 7 and Fedora/Ubuntu. If only operating systems could reproduce sexually.