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Thu Apr 9 07:53:02 PDT 2020

Thanks for the inputs, Howard!

You're right, a cable is definitely an option.  In fact, that's where I
started.  At home, my router is on a shelf in a closet on the second floor,
and the only cable I have is 3' long, but that was good enough for a quick
test.  Success. Encouraging, but my home office is way down in the
basement, so my next step was to see what would happen with the Netgear
WiFi adapter I used to use on this machine under XP.  Fail.  Completely
ignored by Linux.  I quickly found somebody on the forums that had made
this exact adapter work, so that seemed encouraging... and down the rabbit
hole I slipped.  I have since determined that a 50' cable will reach from
that closet to my desk, and I'm on my way out to get one.

This is really a grand experiment to figure out a solution to working from
home.  I'm not married to this laptop nor Linux, but they were so close at
hand that it was an obvious place to begin.  I have to keep reminding
myself what the main goal is - to mitigate the annoyances I encountered in
my intial work-from-home experience.

SO

On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 9:59 AM Howard Fleming <hfleming at moosebird.net>
wrote:

> 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>
> 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>
>> 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
>>> http://lists.antique-tractor.com/listinfo.cgi/at-antique-tractor.com
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>>
>> Francis Robinson
>> aka "farmer"
>> Central Indiana USA
>> robinson46176 at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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