About a month ago, I installed Ubuntu on my laptop as a second OS. Vista Home Premium was the original and workhorse of the two OS’s.  I have fell in love with Ubuntu so I decided to clean my laptop of Vista and install Ubuntu 8.04 as my only OS. During each install of Ubuntu, I noticed that setting up wireless can be a pain. I will share a few quick and easy steps to get your wireless and Ubuntu working.

My wireless lan controller is from Broadcom so these steps are specifically for this controller.

First, open and terminal and type the following code:

sudo aptitude update

This will update your system with all the available packages.

Second, go to System –> Administration –> Synaptic Package Manager. Search for b43-fwcutter and install it. This will install the firmware for your wireless card.

Finally, go to Connect to Wireless Network and enter the necessary information.

That should do it. These are the steps I have followed each time I needed to setup wireless for Ubuntu. Please let me know if this does or does not work for you. Good luck!

Since I have been a Microsoft developer for the last 12 years, I haven’t paid much attention to Linux or the open-source community. I have been unhappy with Vista for a little while and I wanted to expand my technology knowledge so I installed Ubuntu on my Vista laptop, which makes it a dual-boot laptop now.

I have been very impressed with Ubuntu. It has been very fast in comparison to Vista or XP. Ubuntu starts up or re-boots in a minute compared to a 5 minute start-up for Vista on my laptop. I love I can start my laptop and I don’t have to go get a cup of coffee while I wait for it to start.

I love the Synaptic Package Manager that contains a ton of applications to install. I have installed a number of applications this way, which makes it quick and easy. I have everything installed that I need with the exception of Visual Studio. I even have a Linux version of Internet Explorer installed, which I need for a web application that I use for my business and it only runs in IE.

One minor flaw that I see with Ubuntu (or the open source community in general) is the installation process is sometimes not very easy. I think this is one major reason non-technical people are not willing to give Linux a try.

Ubuntu has a great community forum and my experience in the forum has been very positive thus far. I would encourage all new Ubuntu users to use this forum to get their questions answered quickly and accurately.

In my support of Ubuntu, I will soon be ordering a Dell laptop with Ubuntu. The price of my laptop is much cheaper than if I got the same laptop with Windows. This allows me to spend more money on upgrades such as memory and more hard-drive space.