Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS - 3 distros, 9 wireless stories

By Stan Beer
Thursday, 15 November 2007 14:00

Opinion and Analysis

Just as as I was getting comfortable using Ubuntu on my desktop, enthusiastic readers have assailed me with stories about how I should give other Linux distros a try - particularly the KDE pair PCLinuxOS and SimplyMEPIS. I'm lucky to have four different computers at my immediate disposal so I tried the live CDs of the three distros on three of them to see how plug and play they were for wireless networking. The results were quite surprising. For a start, I really should give you the very basic specs of the four boxes:

PC 1 (my desktop): White box Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz; 4GB RAM; Nvidia GeForce GPU 256MB DDR2; runs Ubuntu 7.10 dual boot with Windows XP SP2

PC 2 (my laptop): Dell Latitude 620 Core 2 Duo 2GHz; 2GB RAM; runs Windows XP SP2

PC 3 : White box Pentium 4 2GHz; 1GB RAM; runs Windows XP SP2

PC 4: White box Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz; 2GB RAM; runs Windows XP SP2

Because so many homes these days have a wireless network and it's virtually mandatory to have access to the Internet, being able to easily configure your box for wireless networking is important. PC 1, my desktop, doesn't have a wireless card because it sits next to the router. Therefore, I left it out of this particular trial. So how did the distros do on the three boxes?

Well one distro stood out from the rest. In fact, from the point of view of plug and play wireless connectivity, it stood head and shoulders above the other two distros.

So which is the distro of choice for wireless connectivity? Be warned, it may not be the one you think.  continued>>>