Inspiron 6400 Which Linux?

Have you checked over on the Ubuntu forums regarding your wireless? (http://www.ubuntuforums.org) When you were trying to install Ubuntu, were you doing a manual install? If so, you could try, when the partitioner comes up, you should have the XP (or ntfs) partition, then create a primary partition, using ext3 (this will be your / or root directory), then, when you go to create another partition, create an extended partition, and choose logical partition (think that's what it's called...). Once that's created, you should then be able to create your swap partition, and another partition for your /home directory

Try the installing CentOS 4.4 (www.centos.org), do a "yum update" and go up to the ndiswrapper wiki at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page for detailed instructions on how to set things up. I highly recommend building your own kernel module and binary rpms from the ndiswrapper source, as well as creating your own ifcfg-wlan0 file from scratch and using that rather than letting a Network Montior or another GUI utility to do it for you. Wireless configuration and operation is still not quite "ready for prime time" on Linux (sometimes I wonder if it is on Windows either). Taking the time to learn how to make it all work at the command line will more than pay for itself in reduced frustration when "wizards" and GUI configurators fail (as they all inevitably do).

Not at all. Go to my web site for concise, step-by-step, instructions on how to do this on CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise: http://lembobrothers.com/~philip/articles/rh020.html I highly recommend perusing the ndiswrapper wiki site mentioned above, http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page in particular for help with specific wireless cards. I won't engage in the Windows vs. Linux thing. If someone wants to learn about operating systems and Unix in particular, I can't think of a better way to do it than struggling with this kind of hardware issue. Having been a sysadmin for 15 years or so (starting out as an NT 3.51 MCSE and now happily managing a few hundred Red Hat Enterprise and Sun Solaris boxes), I would never recommend Linux for a casual desktop user (like my Dad). For power users, and anyone in the sciences in particular, I do usually recommend Linux for it's stability, security and control over the underlying system. One of the most annoying things about desktop Linux is the late start it got in managing wireless connections. For now, at least, Windows is far superior for that application.