Ubuntu again…

I had a BSOD episode with my Asus Eee PC 1000H last weekend that reminded I’d promised myself to look into putting Linux on the box. It was a nasty BSOD that kept the Asus from booting as it kept repeating during the boot sequence.
Fortunately I was able to recover using an XP CD I have around…I couldn’t find the Asus recover CD. But that whole episode reminded me that it was time to put something reliable to work.
In the past I’ve written a little about using an Eee, especially with my Sierra USBConnect 881. Back February it required that I download the module, compile it, install it, and run it with shell scripts. It wasn’t particularly difficult to do, but I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going through the whole process again.
Luckily I didn’t have to this time.
This time around I’m going with Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. It’s kernel has the correct code already configured and, even better, the network manager recogizes the 881 right off the bat.
The problem is that out of the box it doesn’t work. Fortunately the fix is incredibly easy. When I first plugged in the 881 it was recogized and I was prompted add the device to the NetworkManager Applet (0.7.0). I immediately gave it a try and it would look like it was going to work, then disconnect. Darn. I thought I was going to have to use the scripts again. Luckily that isn’t the case. I found an article that suggested that simply removing all the information in the applet would work. Seems counter-intuitive, but it does work. My “wrong” settings looked that this:

The suggested settings, ones that work for me are:

It came right up.
As for the regular wifi, I did have to copy over the driver from the XP partition and use that. All good.
The other good news is that everything works on my Toshiba Satellite L45-7423. Last time I tried a Linux on it I had to use an external wifi dongle instead of the built-in card. Now the card is found without a hitch.
Thanks!
Aloha!