So I've finally resolved the ONE big issue that I've always had with getting Linux to recognize my built-in wireless chipset in my laptop thanks to the awesome tutorials I've found at Ubuntu1501's Blog. In case anyone is curious, here is the script that I ran through that ended up working. If you need more details about executing it, absolutely visit the linked site, his site really is great.

Execute line by line:

sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
wget http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE
mkdir ~/.drivers
mv ~/ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz ~/.drivers
mv ~/R140747.EXE ~/.drivers
cd ~/.drivers
tar -xzvf ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
sudo su
sudo echo blacklist bcm43xx >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

::REBOOT HERE::

cd ~/.drivers/ndiswrapper-1.47
sudo make uninstall
sudo make
sudo make install
cd ~/.drivers
unzip -a R140747.EXE
cd ~/.drivers/DRIVER
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -l
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

::REBOOT HERE::

sudo iwlist scanning

Good luck all! I'm off enjoying my wireless. I think for the next post I'll adding a list of applications that I've installed since getting the wifi working along with in the future adding my Samba smb.conf file for anyone who is interested in it.

First Post

So I've been delaying the inevitable creation of my 'blog' for some time now, and I've finally caved. I guess I've put it off for so long since I have such a sharp distaste for the word 'blog' itself and how it has crept in to the lexicon of the moronic night-time news anchors and fallen prey to celebrity gossip columnists. Meanwhile, here I am. I am here. I'm going to create a blog about all my various tech related projects and musings.

So what will I choose as a jumping off point? Probably run down a lot of my more interesting experiences with standing up my Linux file server. It has really turned into quite the task, and surprisingly enough, the problems haven't really been core Linux issues, more so with the apps that I've been trying to get running in a stable environment. Maybe I'll even throw in some Oracle snippets here and there to mix it up.