Installing Xubuntu 7.04 on a Gateway MX6440 Laptop
April 27th, 2007 by 
jay
This is an update to my previous post Installing Xubuntu 6.06 on a Gateway Laptop.
Summary
Xubuntu 7.04 is a derivative from the popular Ubuntu Linux distro with the difference being Xubuntu uses the Xfce Window Manager instead of Gnome or KDE. Xfce is a light weight Open Source window manager that is fast and efficient which makes Xubuntu ideal for lower end computers. Or if you want a super fast system try Xubuntu on a newer system like a my Gateway MX6440 Laptop (1.8Ghz Turion64 with a gig of RAM) and you’ll be amazed at how fast Linux can run.
Xubuntu, I Still Love You
I fell in love with Xubuntu because it was fast and lightweight. I loved that fact the the default installation came with very few applications pre-installed. I loved how Xfce was very clean and easy to configure. I loved that Xubuntu was an alternative to the alternatives. And after a brief separation I am ready to re-new my vows and love Xubuntu even more.
To the naked-eye Xubuntu 7.04 is no different from Xubuntu 6.10 or Xubuntu 6.04. The changes are subtle so drastic change in UI (Vista) which will cause die-hards to cringe. You will notice that the login page looks a little nicer as well as the boot logo but once you inside it’s the same old Xubuntu with Thunar File Manager and the Xfce desktop.
So what did change?
One of the big “wow” items was the 3D Desktop (Vista like functionality). I tried to run it from the Ubuntu LiveCD and it threw an error. Oh well, I use Xubuntu so flashy eye-candy isn’t a selling point for me.
The other item was the enhanced Wireless networking. In Xubuntu 7.04 Wifi should work out of the box or with very few tweaks. But of course it didn’t work for my Gateway. I checked the Ubuntu forums and tried several tricks. Nothing. At one point the Network monitor applet started blinking and it managed to obtain an IP Address but still no connection to the network. Then one night (Day 3 Xubuntu 7.04) I was installing stuff from the Package Manager and I saw the Gnome Network Manager tool. What the heck, I’ll load that up and see what happens. As soon as the install was finished the Wifi monitor started blinking like crazy with network traffic. OMFG!!! It’s Alive!! Sure enough my wireless card is working and it has continued to work after several re-boots.
One of the reasons for my separation period from Xubuntu was due to the issues of the Wireless card having to be re-configured after every re-boot. Grrrr. I finally gave up and went back to the dark-side of XP and said when Wifi works in Xubuntu I use it again.
Applications and Stuff
I am really into the whole Firefox has every thing I could ever need mindset but there are a few apps that I have found that are not Firefox Extensions.
Here are a few Extensions I am using:
ScribeFire - Blogging posting tool.
Google Notebook - for clipping text, links and images from the web.
FireFTP -
Firebug - You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
Backpack Pages and Backpack Publish - Which allow you to send notes, todo items and reminders to 37signals Backpack
Filezilla for Linux - This is a Debian package but you just double-click on the file to install.
RapidSVN - Which can be found in the Synaptic Package Manager.
Meld Diff Viewer- a visual diff and merge tool.
Last Words
My apologies if this seems short/random/incomplete but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there on Xubuntu.
There are no drastic changes in the 7.04 release which is a good thing. The added support for my Broadcom Wireless card is the selling point for me and I hope that other people find it easier to get wifi up and running with other wifi cards.
Distros Wireless Xubuntu
November 10th, 2007 at 11:07 am
i use the same laptop as you do and all the thing that you need to do is to put the firmware for the Broadcom wireless card in /lib/firmware
and it will work
but with ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu 7.10 it is easier.they give you the option to download them and it installs them automatically.