Or maybe i can use good sense (for a change) and use the Dell without worrying over the battery.

That's what I do on my 12-year-old Dell laptop. There always seems to be a wall outlet nearby, and I don't have to worry about working too long and running down the battery.

In my case, since i'm offgrid, and cloud-effect often occurs in the afternoon, bumping the solar array voltage over its limit, my 110v AC has a tendency to cut out for 30 seconds until the solar controller has a chance to catch up.  Fortunately the modification i made to its charger cable, along with another gizmo, lets me run it on 12vDC and i've some of those outlets around.

I just wish i hadn't shorted whatever i shorted when making that modification, it had/has good battery life when combined with linux suspend.

I resolved the wifi-card issue by replacing the damn Broadcom chip with a generic Intel one, it was easy to replace and only cost about $12 or so.  As a result of that i can now run Devuan on it, as well as on my "windows box" a thinkpad t510.

Thanks to all who attempted to help.

Anyone who has an xps-13?  Ditch the Broadcom chip.

linux is just not worth the trouble.  never has been, since ubuntu-oneiric.  i'm sure other peoples' mileage varies, but i'm disgusted by the whole situation.  it could be so much better.  if not for copyrights and word-twisting lawyers and patents nobody can afford to file for when they know anything worth stealing will be stolen once it's proven its value.  money and lawyers.  nuff sed.

Or maybe i can use good sense (for a change) and use the Dell without worrying over the battery.

That's what I do on my 12-year-old Dell laptop. There always seems to be a wall outlet nearby, and I don't have to worry about working too long and running down the battery.

I've been known to let things limp along too.  I've also been known to go buy a new computer or phone
just because i want to.  It isn't as though i'm forced to Adult all the time, once you're retired you can
more or less do what you please, though i've been doing so much as-i-please lately that i have to Adult for
a while. <G>

Probably i'll just install as i would otherwise, once it's installed i can back it up with the other dozen or
so distros i have laying around on removable media.  An installed copy of linux is remarkably portable.
If i black out and end up with a new Surface device i'll have it ready to go.

I wonder if anybody else is sick of the keyboard/editor circus.  Between my Dell, my Chromebook, and
my Blackberry, i have 3 different keyboard layouts, and as a touch typist it makes me kind of nuts.

Or maybe i can use good sense (for a change) and use the Dell without worrying over the battery.

That's what I do on my 12-year-old Dell laptop. There always seems to be a wall outlet nearby, and I don't have to worry about working too long and running down the battery.

Anyway it works but does not charge.   Not sure what to do about this, maybe install onto an external drive, maybe pull the hard-drive out and pitch the rest, maybe buy a new laptop, but unfortunately those cost money.  Moot until next time i'm set up with an ethernet connection i guess.  LOL.

Those running happily on a laptop, or not so happily, if it was laptop-xmas time, what would you get?  Since my blackberry is limping along, maybe i can find a laptop/phone combination that works well together.

Or maybe i can use good sense (for a change) and use the Dell without worrying over the battery.

Presumably you mean after i've installed the OS from the .iso file referenced in some post above this one which i can't access at this point.   And after installing the recommended .iso file in some partition and
rebooting to run the newly installed OS.  At that point in the process i run the following commands to install the broadcom drivers.  If that is correct, then 'uname' should in some way correspond to the version number or codename of the version that you recommend.

Yes, install the wireless firmware after you install the system to hard drive. I forget which iso you're using, too. If you're using one of the installer isos, you could use an ethernet cable during the installation and pull packages from the repository. The live-isos just install from the media.

uname -r is a command that returns the version number of the running kernel. Putting it in the package name like that is using command substitution, and you can run that apt-get command exactly the way I posted it. Bash will substitute the kernel version, and you'll get the right linux-headers package. It's also possible to represent it like this: linux-headers-`uname -r`. It does the same thing, and it's easier to type, but it's less visible in a forum post.

Oh, I didn't realize you have an ethernet port. You're all set. Plug in, then

Presumably you mean after i've installed the OS from the .iso file referenced in some post above this one which i can't access at this point.   And after installing the recommended .iso file in some partition and
rebooting to run the newly installed OS.  At that point in the process i run the following commands to install the broadcom drivers.  If that is correct, then 'uname' should in some way correspond to the version number or codename of the version that you recommend.  i think that was the latest one, its name escapes me at present but will resurface immediately prior to its download. <g>

If i only have to boot it once after powering up that will be an order of magnitude better than ubuntu, and i'll omit the rant on that one.  for now.  the one on systemd and how it jammed up everyone's nose.

The deal with ncurses is that being an archaic interface is not the worst of it, the worst of it is the way PHP was basically subsumed for corporate profit and one has to use some PECL or something to install a version of the PHP/ncurses interface.  And at some version or other, variable naming was changed so that the ncurses interfaces no longer match, and nobody has bothered to fix it.  I doubt that anybody is even using it besides me, due to its limitations, but i have an extensive nautilus extension that does everything but unplug the kitchen sink, and i'm not about to waste time contributing to zend/whatever's profit, so the latest version of the PECL extension should imo determine the version number of a corresponding PHP.

I think few agree with the way i see things.  The project i'm currently working on will be largely proprietary because that is, in practical terms, the only way to ensure that a standard is followed.  At the same time it would save me a lot of work to pick up some copyable arithmetic routines, though it doesn't matter that much since that all has to follow a common interface to allow various arithmetic hardware to be used.

Dang, running on again, my bad.  Anyway i'll definitely check here for footprints before installing.  I expect it to be no big deal, and apologize for not realizing prior to spending a week in various hotels that simply plugging in a cable would do the trick. 

BTW, can anyone tell me what happened to the kind of discussions we used to have on usenet, last time i looked it was just a few trolls talking to itselves.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential

You might need to reboot to get it to work.

Maybe the local coffee shop will let you plug in with a wire. Then you don't have to wait for the next visit to a hotel.

While you're there, you can install whatever php packages you need. You should already have ncurses. I don't understand the part about matching versions - I didn't think they were related in any way. ncurses-base in ascii is 6.0+20161126-1+deb9u2 and php7.0 is 7.0.30-0+deb9u1.

A search for 'php-ncurses debian' brings up a a few hits. This one from 2015 looks promising, but my browser is timing out trying to get there. http://grosan.co.uk/how-to-install-php- … on-debian/

Now, which of the ISOs is it that has a version of PHP that also has a matching version of ncurses?  I don't need the latest version, i think the 5.3 version is the last one with a functional ncurses extension.  ubuntu-mate has a PHP version of 7.? (or did) but there's no matching version of ncurses.  I'm currently booting debian-jessie when i want to use on of the utilities i've put together in PHP.

Suggestions?

When you fix it let me know which ISO file supposedly works.  TY

Sorry to say, but I'm pretty sure it won't ever get fixed in Devuan or in Debian. FYI, the firmware you need is not in the debian-live-nonfree isos, either. Maybe Canonical feels wealthy enough to abide by the terms spelled out in the copyright notice. (Emphasis added)

Or, maybe Canonical has lawyers that understand the following paragraph of bullshit and know it doesn't say a damn thing?  idk, i'm just a programmer, not a liar-with-words.  Or maybe Canonical simply doesn't
care, no telling.

2.3. Restriction on Distribution. Licensee shall only distribute the Software
(a) under the terms of this Agreement and a copy of this Agreement accompanies
such distribution, and (b) agrees to defend and indemnify Broadcom and its
licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts
and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any
claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use
or distribution of any and all Software by the Licensee except as contemplated
herein.

I think that leaves you with using ubuntu or getting different hardware (maybe a usb wireless dongle).

I think it doesn't much matter, it's primarily system-independent-C++ with a set of plugins per operating
system, until it's burned into rom and then the os becomes irrelevant.  Microsoft almost certainly has
some chicanery involved in the design of the new partition setup, efi i guess it was, that lets you define
your own architecture and lock the end-user out of anything else.

It's easy to forget details.  Carry on then, pip pip and cheerio, all that hooplah --

And thanks for running it down, i appreciate your help.

meh, it doesn't matter much.  if i got it installed, there'd probably be no ncurses matching php, like on whatever ubuntu i was using... ubuntu-mate that's it.  i can reboot the thing 4 or 5 times and eventually get ubuntu-mate up and running and all i'm really using it for is the debugging/development environment,
netbeans i think it was.  it's just C++ development.  it's just damn annoying to have to reboot linux as
many as 5 times just to get to the login screen.  it's disgusting is what it is, it just flat sucks.

oh well, i'm not sure if i'll ever pick up that code again, it's been over a year since i looked at it, more
than that i guess.  i was just about getting a good start on it when my wife got sick and i never have
looked at it since.

i just think it's a helluva note that linux has to suck hind tit when it's underpinning most of the industry.  no idea what's wrong with y'all, Android sucks, Windows sucks, iOS sucks, i say fix the thing in one whack
or let it go entirely to hell.  It'll get figured out eventually, another 10 or 20 years, if Microsoft doesn't pull one out of the bag before then.  Since the wife died i'm ambivalent, letting it all go to hell is not that big
a deal to me anymore.

When you fix it let me know which ISO file supposedly works.  TY

Sorry to say, but I'm pretty sure it won't ever get fixed in Devuan or in Debian. FYI, the firmware you need is not in the debian-live-nonfree isos, either. Maybe Canonical feels wealthy enough to abide by the terms spelled out in the copyright notice. (Emphasis added)

I think that leaves you with using ubuntu or getting different hardware (maybe a usb wireless dongle).

golinux wrote:

Why would that be necessary when Devuan has all of Debian's non-free drivers available at the user's discretion?

It would be necessary for someone who can't use a wired connection and needs one of the broadcom packages that require a network connection to install the firmware.

YES, that is exactly my situation.  I live in the mountains off-grid and the only internet access i have is a wifi hotspot on my cellphone.

Let me know if this POS will ever be usable by those without hardwired connections.

IMO the whole thing is absurd.  I know how good linux is, this is a build issue plain and simple.

When you fix it let me know which ISO file supposedly works.  TY

Why would that be necessary when Devuan has all of Debian's non-free drivers available at the user's discretion?

It would be necessary for someone who can't use a wired connection and needs one of the broadcom packages that require a network connection to install the firmware.