Dell wireless and windows files

[rustysail]

I have two questions.

1. I have a dell wireless 1450 wireless USB adapter and I was hoping it would work in kubuntu. Is there any way to force this?

2. I am currently dual booting with xp and kubuntu. I would like to use kubuntu for most every day tasks but all my files are on windows. Is there a way to acess, edit, and save those with both linux and windows or can I set up a separate partition for files somehow?

I would appreciate your help a lot. Thanks

[askrieger]

Re: Dell wireless and windows files

1) Dell computers are usually pretty bad in terms of accomodating Linux. (I know, I have had 5 or 6 Dells, eventually, they work) Have you tried to google linux for that adapter? I found http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=198289 which may help. In general you will probably have to use a program called ndiswrapper which allows Linux to use the windows wireless driver. I'm not sure how this works with a usb wireless adapter. I do know that the Broadcom 1450 does work with ndiswrapper and I believe that that's what gets branded as a Dell 1450.

2)You can both read and write files on windows fat32 (vfat) partitions, and you can read, but not write files on ntfs partitions. Most people who dual boot Linux and windows make a small (1 or 2 GB) vfat partition that they use to exchange data between Linux and windows. Kubuntu might recognize your Windows partitions automagically during installation and make it possible to use them. If not, someone here will be glad to help you out.

[rustysail]

Re: Dell wireless and windows files

This will probably dound stupid but I can't figure it out.

I downloaded the ndiswrapper, put it on a disk, and opened the disk in linux. I tried using an archiving tool to exreact it, that still leaves me with a bunch of files that I have no idea what to do with. I hope I'm not being a total retard. :P

[askrieger]

Re: Dell wireless and windows files

There is an article in the November issue of Tux Magazine ( http://www.tuxmagazine.com/ ) that covers ndiswrapper.

[rustysail]

Re: Dell wireless and windows files

I looked at the article you mentioned but I'm still having trouble. I am currently at the point where the the windows driver (it is a .exe file) is sitting on my linux desktop. I tried opening the console and typing "unzip file.exe" and I tried the same strategy in the command line. Nothing happened but an error message turned up in the console. I also have so far managed to install ndiswrapper using apt-get. But i find myself lost. I already searched around on the internet but nothing seemed to work.

[askrieger]

Re: Dell wireless and windows files

I know NOTHING about wireless, but there is a discussion of ndiswrapper in the Ubuntu Wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper