XP Aspire One; Boot USB Linux & still get working wireless?

Hi,

Allow me to preface this inquiry with the facts that I am an FNG, but have also searched the forum for help and found nothing conclusive (I would like to think I got my FNGitis out a few years ago).

I was directed here by a user of ubuntuforums.org under the auspices that I would find more knowledge here than I did there.

To outline the situation: I have an Aspire One with XP on it, but would like to be able to boot Linux from a thumbdrive. I haven't yet loaded it, but have looked at the BIOS and it appears to allow booting from USB. So far so good.

Once I get Linux functioning, however, I would like to be able to use the internal wireless card on the netbook. From my experiences in the past, I know that Linux my not play fair with a system. Are there any ways to get Linux to talk to the on board wireless card? What are the glitches?

Thanks so much for your help, and I appreciate a community such as this,

 

The glitch is in the wireless drivers - ath5k vs. ath_pci (aka madwifi). If you go with Ubuntu 8.10 you'll need to either install the linux-backports-modules package for your kernel (and may need to blacklist the ath_pci module) or compile a more recent version of the madwifi driver. A third option would be to install one of the custom kernels that include the ath5k driver. It's a shameless plug, but see, for example,
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9383&p=60689

 

Fedora 10 worked flawlessly with my wireless, when I was booting it from USB to try it out. (Still works after the install, too).

Edit: I used an i686 live CD iso, BTW.