I just now placed the new SSD in the Vaio and installed Ubuntu 12.10. I have never seen anything this fast. Install was fast enough, but power to login in 13 seconds? Wow. Call me a happy camper :-)
Next step - see if the old HD in the USB enclosure will boot - and whether everything is readable. That and install everything all over again. Getting away from W8 is like a breath of fresh air! JC On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Chris Knadle <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wednesday, April 03, 2013 18:09:02, Gary A Mort wrote: > > On 4/3/2013 2:19 AM, Chris Knadle wrote: > > > On Tuesday, April 02, 2013 23:41:36, Gary A Mort wrote: > > > [...] > > >> I have a low end, slow laptop and Linux Mint was nice and zippy, did > > >> everything at the speed I wanted.....except the silly Realtek wireless > > >> card would not work properly. It constantly dropped my connection, > > >> would not connect, would not connect to open wifi networks, etc. > > >> > > >> It got to the point that I finally gave up and am unhappily using > > >> Windows 8 and counting the days until I can upgrade to a new > > >> computer....this time I will double check the network card > compatibility > > >> before getting it and then I will finally be back on Mint and happy. > > > > > > Out of curiosity was this in combination with using ndiswrapper? > ... > > I did try the ndiswrapper, but that was the last thing I tried. > > Sounds like the right order to me; I consider ndiswrapper "the last > resort". > > > First I tried the drivers in the apt repositories, then I tried compiling > > and installing realtek's drivers manually[with presumably a binary blob > > somewhere in their process] and then ndiswrapper. > > > > > http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=48&PFi > > d=48&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#RTL8188CE > > > > The really frustrating thing is that in addition to the built-in card[a > > RTL8192CE] I also have a usb version which I had used when having > > trouble with my previous laptop. > > You did exactly what I would have done. > > The only thing I might additionally do is to look into which version of the > Linux kernel might have the driver internally. It looks like the rtl8192c > driver got integrated into Linux 3.8 in Oct 2012: > > http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_3.8_DriverArch > > Looking at the kernel help, I believe the config option is > CONFIG_RTL8192CU, > which also overs the RTL8188. > > The typical thing I'd do from here would be to get the kernel source (the > vanilla linux-stable Git repo, git checkout v3.8.5), start with the default > config file from Mint's kernel by copying over /boot/config-$(uname -r) to > ".config" in the kernel source directory, run 'make oldconfig' to make > choices > about new options, then 'make menuconfig' and make sure to include this > wireless driver. Then build the kernel directly to a .deb package (two > ways > to do that -- the Linux upstream kernel has a tool for this, or you can use > make-kpkg from the Debian kernel-package package), then install it and try > it. > > If you want to try this, let me know -- I can help guide you through it. > > Also requires the 'firmware-realtek' package, the description of which (for > the package in Debian Sid/Unstable) lists firmware for both of these > devices. > > > > Building a custom kernel is something I've very typically had to do for new > hardware. :-/ The mainstream distribution kernels tend to lag upstream by > about a year. > > > Most troubleshooting steps include enabling software encryption - which > > had worked for me before. On the new laptop it made things worse and I > > found I had to disable it instead to get slightly better performance. > > My guess is that there is a binary blob being used when on-card > > encryption is used - and that the problem lies with it. > > There's a binary firmware blob for both devices, required to get them to > work > at all. Yay wireless. Almost all wireless devices have this issue. > > > Enabling software encoding moves things off the card and onto the CPU, > > bypassing the problem. Since my new system is rather low end, I assume > > the CPU just can't keep up with wifi. > > > > *shrug*....it works for windows and runs PHPStorm and Smartgit, so I can > > use it for projects and get a better system a few months down the line. > > The fact that it works on Windows seems to contradict this. There's > virtually > no hardware that I don't think could keep up with wireless... wireless is > slow. > > -- Chris > > -- > Chris Knadle > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org > http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug > > Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College > Feb 6 - Raspberry Pi > Mar 6 - 10th Anniversary Meeting - Linux where you least expect it > Apr 3 - Typography: Physical Art to Digital Art > -- Prov. 12:15 Eschew obfuscation and pompous prolixity. Light a man a fire, he is warm for the night. Light a man afire, he is warm for the rest of his life.
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