[ubuntu-uk] Zoostorm laptop at ebuyer.com

Paula Graham pmgazz at gmx.co.uk
Fri Feb 1 15:54:04 UTC 2013


On 31/01/13 20:30, Tyler J. Wagner wrote:
> On 2013-01-31 18:46, Paula Graham wrote:
>> I've got the i3 version of the Zoostorm laptop - 12.04 installed
>> perfectly except wifi chip is a bit of a pain, needs to be hunted down,
>> compiled and then recompiled every time the kernel upgrades - native
>> driver should be in kernel 3.8. The current driver is a tad flaky, drops
>> connection irritatingly.
> An important thing to remember when buying laptops is that the wireless
> chipset is usual a mini/micro/whatever PCI card and can be swapped out for
> something with better support. When I run into a weird/Dell/Broadcom wifi
> chipset with bad Linux support, I buy the last-generation Intel chipset on
> eBay for £10 and toss the old in a pile somewhere. It's cheaper and easier
> than you think it is. Certainly easier than compiling a driver every few weeks.
>
> Tyler
>
I dunno, doesn't seem a huge burden to me - the driver's in a handy
folder - it takes all of 20 secs to compile - prefer it to opening a
brand new laptop with a perfectly good Realtek chip (and I'm clumsy with
hardware). Will just tolerate mild inconvenience, upgrade when 13.04
comes out with kernel 3.8 and native driver - problem solved, feisty
laptop with no MS tax for under £400 ;)

Paula



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