ADSL USB Router drivers

[CathJ]

Here's the situation: I'm trying to set up a laptop for an old lady who's son gave her the laptop then left to go overseas. It's really old, it only has 64Mb of ram and no network card.

It currently has Win 98 on, but it's half in French (I suspect the french version of IE5 was installed). I've spent the day trying to reinstall Win98 or IE5, and for various reasons haven't been able to do either. It's also trying to establish a dial up connection every time I start IE, and I can't figure out how to stop it (partly because it's all in french).

My original idea was to remove win98 and install gOS, since all she'll be doing is browsing the net and sending/receiving email. The problem comes in because the laptop doesn't have a network card; we can connect the adsl router via USB, but under win98 (at least) you need to install drivers to get it to work.

If I install gOS, will I be able to get the router to connect to the net with minimal fuss? I really don't want to have to compile drivers and stuff. It's a mecer 4 port adsl router, which I think is a rebranded conexant, but I'm not sure what model.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MyWorld]

Fire up a liveCD like Knoppix and give us the output of:
lsusb

Conexant has been know to not work well with Linux (Winmodems, search google for them), but the only way you will find out is if you do what I said.

Also, I would suggest KDE 3.5 for that laptop since it will be the easiest to create a ppp connection with. After it has been set up, just click a button and you are connected to the net. Even an old lady should be able to recognise "Click here for internet".

 

[CathJ]

Fire up a liveCD like Knoppix and give us the output of:
lsusb

I'll try - I have an Ubuntu liveCd which doesn't boot (I suspect there's too little ram).

 

[Asha'man X]

With only 64MB of ram, KDE 3.5 will not work on this laptop I think. That's why your idea of gOS was a good one, but now you face this problem. I can't think of many disto's that work in 64MB these days, but maybe try Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux? If the kernels are fairly modern, maybe they'll pick up the router.

Does the laptop not have a PCMCIA slot? If it does, you could add a network card in it like that.

 

[MyWorld]

64Mb of ram, ouch, did not see that....

If you could at least get the ram to 128 then you have a sporting chance to make the most of this laptop.

Maybe you'll get lucky if you beg on some local forums, systemshock, prophecy and here.

Otherwise you will need to go ultra light with Fluxbox, custom compiled kernel and shell scripts for the router, and for a computer newbie (the old lady) that may be daunting.