On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Always Learning <centos at g7.u22.net> wrote: > > I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically > extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on > his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7. > > His super-duper new laptop arrived. Acer, AMD 4 core, fast etc. but not > as nice looking as my impressive HP DV5. The wireless refused to > connect. > > After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the > neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2. > > iwlist wlan0 scan > > produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect. > NetworkManager sometimes froze. > > Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which > uses a driver known as ATH9K. Many others have had a similar problem. > Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18. > > On my Sony Vaio netbook I abandoned XP and installed Centos 5.5. No wifi > (yet XP had) but luckily for me I eventually discovered the Altheros > AR8132 needed ATL1E which, for Centos 5.5, means a kernel modification. > Luckily it is on Elrepo as kmod-atl1e. A quick Yum and I was connected. > Many thanks to Elrepo. The netbook comes to life with Centos. Its now a > really usable machine. XP on a netbook was pure crap. > > However ATH9K for Centos 5.5 does not exist. > > This afternoon I had to tell my friend his brand new computer is > incompatible with Centos and wifi. > > Please can anyone recommend a suitable Linux variant with a kernel >= > 2.6.27 that is a bit like Centos ? > > Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will > have drivers like ATH9K ? > > Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ? > > Thank you. > > Best regards, > > Paul > GB CentOS is great for servers, but absolutely not for a new person you're trying to get to try Linux. This approach actually hurts Linux since people think "oh I tried Linux and it sucked". Ubuntu is the way to go for this, and I would at least start from a LiveCD (though it is slow) and work from there. VirtualBox is a good next step from the LiveCD, as almost no one wants to be dual-booting.