(Sorry for this aside, but it *is* related to playing of games)
I was heavy into Linux in college AKA 2005-on, but haven't used it much sense. I went into a job that was all Windows, see. Things moved on.
Yet I first tried to set him up with Ubuntu (specifically Lubuntu, since he insisted the machine was too weak for 7). And then the latest version of Mint. I suspect...
Well, no. I *would* suspect that the issue was his laptop's
wireless-toggle. In this case, not even a switch or button, just... the F2 button.
(I've never owned a laptop where you have to hold a key to use the FN-keys, or else they do various things like adjust volume. Absolutely disgusting.)
But while in Mint or Ubuntu, the wireless device didn't show up at all, and the wireless toggle didn't help. The little help I found to download a tar.gz and make - make install, and that source failed to build. Probably the wrong version.
Probably going to just reinstall XPsp3. Or maybe 7... There were hints that XP may have been installed to satisfy a grandparent, the previous owner.
dunno where they found an XP key but okay
Edit4edit (a shame that doubleposts are maligned on this forum, would have notified): Yeah, I think it is a variety of Broadcom. I cared enough to port one set of drivers, but not the right version. I don't think I care enough to find the right version, then figure out modern WINE... People always lied about it being simple, but that was literally like 10 years ago.
I'll see, but I really don't want to be doing tech support for my housemate forever. So I'm tempted to go Windows (while re-exploring Linux myself).