laptop almost perfect

[Eric S. Johansson]

I apologize for asking so many questions lately.  Hopefully I will learn 
enough about ubuntu that I will be able to start helping my answering 
questions.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to make my laptop perfectly 
configured.  X11 works fine, I can suspend to swap from the shutdown 
menu that two things bother me.

I'm using a dell inspiron 5000

1) when I close the lid, the machine hangs.  the only thing I want lid 
closure to do is turn off the backlight.  Frequently I leave programs 
running but I want the lid closed.

2) the ever popular wireless question.  I have a Linksys wpc11 v 2.5 
card.  Theoretically it's supported by the Linux-wlan driver but I'm not 
quite making a leap between installing the module and seeing wlan0 via 
ifconfig.  obviously once that works, the next question is how does one 
make it work automatically when the card is in in contrast to when the 
ethernet card is in.

Yes, I know it's a crusty old card but quite frankly I don't care enough 
to spend money on a more modern card.  Especially when it seems to be a 
crapshoot as to whether or not you will get a card that works.

The second wireless card I have it is a belkin f5d6020.  Not quite as 
crusty but also questionable in Linux.

I do appreciate the help.  Hopefully I'll learn enough about this 
distribution (7th to date and hopefully last for a while) so I can start 
helping out.  I think my next challenge will be learning how to build 
.deb files.

---eric