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Howard Fleming hfleming at moosebird.net
Thu Apr 9 06:51:21 PDT 2020


Just to add my 2 bits to the conversation.....

4 gigs of ram in the laptop should be more than enough for most things 
(if you leave wine out of the equation).  I am running Debian 10 on a 
Asus laptop here with 4 gigs, with the OS installed on the hard drive.

Another option not mentioned for internet access is if you are near the 
wifi router, and if it has an ethernet port(s), use an ethernet cable to 
connect the laptop to the router, there is a better chance that the 
ethernet interface is support by Linux (Mint, or any other flavor for 
that matter).

As mentioned by others, an adapter directly supported by Linux Mint is a 
much better option.

Only addition I would suggest is to get wifi usb 3.0 adapter, it should 
handle the 2.0 spec without a problem, and if you do have 3.0 usb port 
on the laptop, should speed it up considerably (assuming wifi is not 
your limiting factor.....).

*If* you do want to try to use your existing adapter and are looking for 
specific windows files for the usb adapter that you do have, you may 
already have the files on the windows laptop you tested the adapter on.  
You "should" be able to to find the inf file under c:\windows\inf, and 
the inf file should name the driver file you will also need, if you 
decide to try this.  Having done this in the past, I would recommend 
buying a new adapter.

As for farmers comment on the command line, he is probably correct on it 
holding back Linux on the desktop/mainstream for home use.  In the 
business world it tends to be more "we are a windows shop mindset" which 
tends to trickle down to end users....

I personally like the command line for many things, tends to be much 
faster for many things (including getting yourself in trouble if you 
enter the wrong command).

I run mostly Debian at home for desktop and server use, tho I do have 
one 15 plus year old Centos 4.2 server still going (isolated from the 
internet!) that I have been meaning to replace for the last 10 years or 
so ;o).

And the more I learn about Linux, the less I know......

Howard





On 4/8/20 6:47 PM, Stephen Offiler wrote:
> Thanks farmer.  You all are being quite helpful, and I really 
> appreciate it.  Imagine my dismay to learn just how novice I really am 
> - I never even considered there was such a thing as a 
> "linux-compatible network adapter" until Spencer and now you mentioned 
> it.  Going to see if maybe Staples or Best Buy or whoever else might 
> have one; that way I can drive over there and get it same-day.  The 
> company's buying this hardware. Before you ask - they aren't too wild 
> about buying me a whole new laptop, and I don't blame them; at best I 
> might fall into 1/2-1 day per week routine working from home.  But 
> incidentals like these, no problem.
>
> SO
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 5:25 PM Indiana Robinson 
> <robinson46176 at gmail.com <mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     You can get a Linux compatible USB WIFI adapter for about $10 to
>     $15 from Amazon.
>     I wouldn't use Wine at all if it was avoidable. I take it that the
>     laptop was not WIFI because it was a workstation model? was it
>     Ethernet? 4 Gb should be plenty. I'm running Linux Mint on an old
>     desktop with less than that but I'm not running it as USB but I
>     have ran other Linux on USB like Knoppix without any problems.
>     I have a $12.99 Linux compatible WIFI adapter sitting in my Amazon
>     shopping cart waiting to add a few other items before I order. I
>     have a USB WIFI adapter laying on the table beside me but like
>     yours it is for Windows.
>
>
>     .
>
>     On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 3:01 PM Stephen Offiler <soffiler at gmail.com
>     <mailto:soffiler at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         We were discussing Linux a few weeks ago, and after deciding
>         Mint/Mate would be a good choice, I had some initial success
>         booting and running off a thumb drive. Then, I kind of set it
>         aside.
>
>         Now, renewed interest as my employer would like to see more
>         work from home.  While I'm on the shop floor a lot, I do have
>         a ton of paperwork as well.  I have my home computer (iMac)
>         remote-connected to my workstation at work, which is... OK at
>         best.  There are several things I find a bit annoying, and
>         they'd mostly be resolved if I had two machines at home.
>
>         Back to that old laptop.  The Libre Office package that comes
>         with Linux is perfect for my needs, but I need to get it
>         talking to my WiFi at home.  I've got a Netgear USB Wifi
>         interface for that laptop (tested, works fine under Windows)
>         but Linux just ignores it. Google to the rescue.  The solution
>         involves Wine, a compatibility layer that allows Windows stuff
>         to run under Linux.
>
>         Problem - during the Wine install, I got a message that I was
>         out of memory.  The bootable thumb drive is 128GB, so it sure
>         as holy heck isn't full.  I have been hearing that operation
>         off a thumb drive relies heavily on RAM.  This laptop has 4
>         GB.  I was taking the memory error to mean the thumb drive,
>         but that's clearly wrong.  Maybe I need more than 4GB of RAM?
>         Anybody run into anything like this, any words of wisdom?
>
>         (Laptop is a Dell Precision M4400, a workstation-class machine
>         when it was new in 2008.  I used to run Solidworks on it)
>
>         Steve O.
>         _______________________________________________
>         AT mailing list
>         AT at lists.antique-tractor.com <mailto:AT at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>         http://lists.antique-tractor.com/listinfo.cgi/at-antique-tractor.com
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     -- 
>
>     Francis Robinson
>     aka "farmer"
>     Central Indiana USA
>     robinson46176 at gmail.com <mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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