At Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:49:39 +0000 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> 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 ? Hmm... For a hot new laptop, you are pretty much out-of-luck for something like CentOS. FC14 *might* work, but I don't know how stable or end-user friendly FC14 is. A current release of Ubuntu will likely work, but Ubuntu is not like CentOS -- its admin 'style' is a bit different -- things are in different places and the admin tools are different -- as a CentOS user / admin, you'll find them 'strange. OTOH, it is likely to be more newbie / end-user friendly and likely will work better with hot new hardware. > > Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will > have drivers like ATH9K ? CentOS 5.x will always have a 2.6.18 base kernel, but will have backported drivers and security fixes, etc. But probably not drivers for bleeding edge WiFi. > > Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ? Probably whatever Fedora Core 12 (?) has. Whether this will work on your friend's laptop is uncertain. > > Thank you. > > Best regards, > > Paul > GB > > Centos on 2 VPS, 2 desktops, 1 laptop and 1 netbook. > Going cheap : genuine Windoze 95 and 98 installation disks :-) > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments