New network card

Today I got the new Belkin network card I ordered from Dell over the weekend. (Obviously, it being a bank holiday on Monday, and having ordered it at the weekend, it took until today to arrive.) The Dell status update wasn’t very helpful, as it told me yesterday evening that they were awaiting fulfilment from their supplier, which led me to expect delivery tomorrow. The receipt mentions Bratislava, or rather “Bratislavia”, which probably means it wasn’t actually sent from Dell.

The reason I ordered it is because the built-in network interface didn’t play nicely with Linux, which is a shame as Dell is one of the few companies which don’t dishonour their warranty if you install it, which is why I ordered a Dell (and they were cheapest). Almost every time I booted up, I would have to use the little network icon to turn networking off and back on again, and if that did not work, I had to use a terminal program, and disable and then re-enable the kernel module that drives the network. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason and how long it would take to get it working was totally unpredictable. The network card cost £16 including VAT and delivery, and when I booted up after installing it, it just worked, no hassle. The machine is a Dell Inspiron 530, which has since been replaced with the Inspiron 537.