Well, I was soundly thrashed by the Ubuntu Heron, unfortunately. I did briefly, and quite randomly, after much technopokery with Madwifi finally get a scan result from my wireless card. Oddly, it just spotted next door's SkyBox and not my router which sits, oh, just over there behind the houseplant. That proved moot anyway, since that's the only time it spotted any network, evil Murdochian miasma or otherwise. So I threw the Ubuntu disk out in disgust. The kitten, who is confused and thinks she's a dog, brought it back.
I didn't really want to contemplate the level of swearing that getting the flaky USB up and running would entail.
Anyway, I didn't want to go back to Windows XP, because it's the software equivalent of a tank, reminds me of work, and upsets my fine Mac-attuned OS snobbery. The computer I'm dealing with is an old ultraportable, really just for surfing the inertweb from the sofa and composing my regular letters of complaint to British Gas and BT, so it doesn't need much oomph.
Anyway, I did bit of Google noodling and tried Mandriva (the Gnome flavour). And I figured I should give it a plug since it worked a treat, and detected both my wireless card and USB (and everything else for that matter) first time. Up and running fine. Need to replenish my stock of expletives now.
