Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy" on my Amilo L1310G

I've got a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo L1310G lappie, and I've been looking for a version of Linux I can try on it. After searching many a website (mostly german ones...) I managed to find a couple of distributions to try out.

Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy" seemed to be the choice.

I've worked with Linux for quite a while. I like to consider myself an expert on it, no guru, but I can hold my own. I build HA clusters for a living, go figure :)

Installing Ubuntu went perfectly. I shrunk down the windows partition on the drive (non-system drive) and made way for the new tenant. Ubuntu installed and booted up fine. I like the look of Ubuntu, very clean.

One of the priorities was to get the wireless working. The button that turns the wireless card on is software based, which is a big bummer when you move to linux. However, the ubuntu forums came to the rescue. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=207428
The module took about 30 seconds to install. The wireless card came on, and presto.

Next problem is the fact that the standard gnome setup has a archaic network tool (don't get me wrong it's great at wired networks) for wireless out the box. It only supports WEP and Open networks. My wireless network is WPA.

Here's the site I found for WPA on debian. http://www.debianadmin.com/enable-wpa-wireless-access-point-in-ubuntu-linux.html

It's excellent. Debian Admin is a great site to dig around for info.

I got the WPA module working pretty quickly, scanned my wireless network and got the correct info.
When I attempted to install the snazzy gnome-network-manager, I hit a brick wall.
Whenever I installed a gnome addon, and rebooted, I would login and there after, no icons or menu's. Just an orange back ground with a white square in the left corner. Uninstalling the gnome-manager, brought the desktop back on reboot.

When I investigated it turned out, gnome wasn't to blame. There are extra packages that get installed. This is what messes everything up.

The root of the problem is actually the ATI X200 chipset on the lappie.
Bad drivers seem to cause problems with various things. The Flgrx kernal module (which is ATI/AMD's handiwork) disables USB ports shortly after booting up.

I tried to upgrade the module using the apt-get way and the manual download the ATI drivers way. Both modules (which are different versions, the Ubuntu one being older) caused the same orange background with a white square. Removing the module and using VESA default for X11 would bring the desktop back.

I eventually gave up, as I was spending far to much time trying to fix the problem. You can't get around bad binary drivers unfortunately.

Still, I like Ubuntu. I've always been a Redhat man, Fedora Core for a while, with Centos at my current job. However I've setup an Ubuntu server before, and it was very good.
Suse is still my number one desktop OS with Fedora Core in second place.

Anyway.... Keep well all! Time for another cup of coffee.