HOWTO set up Cricket Wireless A600 Broadband Modem in Ubuntu 8.10 32bit & 64bit as well as Ubuntu 9.04 32bit

So 8.10 worked well and 9.04 doesn't?

How about reverting to 8.10 for a while? 8.10 does have one more year's worth of support so it might be worth going back to 8.10 until 9.04 has been fixed a bit more. 8.04 LTS does have much Longer Term Support and it might be worth going right back to that but probably 8.10 for another month or so should be plenty of time :)

I notice that you have an Ati graphics card from the 1000 series and support for that has been withdrawn both by ati and Ubuntu. That's your "ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 What ever that is". I would like to get my 1000 series working in Jaunty but the answer seems to be quite advanced geekdom, certainly more than i currently know. I got as far as finding that the new Xserver 1.6 used in Jaunty is the culprit but i still haven't found out if i can revert to Xserver 1.5 or how to do that even if it is possible. Anyway, none of that is relevant to networking issues, just another reason for going back to 8.10.

Although i can't help with the problem i might help de-cypher what your machine's specs mean. "512MB DDR2" is 'memory'. DDR2 is the newest type, the older types were called 'DDR' and 'Sd-ram' although technically all 3 of those main types are all sd-ram - presumably one of the D's stand for 'sd-ram' lol. 512Mb is probably plenty, more than enough for most things but getting more sometime might speed some things up. It's not urgent though :) It doesn't tell you about how your hard-drive is split up though. In simple terms the processor (cpu) is indeed 'the brains' in that it does the active calculations but it uses the internal cache (extremely fast) and ram (quite fast) and also the 'linux-swap partition' (not very fast) to store temporary data when it has too much to think about or wants some space to prepare for the next thing. This preparation is called 'caching'. The Hard-Drive is 'long term' storage. As reading data from the hard-drive is 'not very fast' the cpu likes to 'read ahead' in anticipation of what you are likely to want it to read next and then 'caches' this data to ram (mostly, although it might use the linux-swap partition for this sometimes if you're not being very predictable). The 'L2 cache' which is 'on chip' is vital for lightning fast calculations on the current activities the cpu is doing.

Windoze likes to 'simplify' things for people by using inaccurate terms and hiding things from people, especially the user. You'll find that within a few months of using linux you understand far more than you could learn in years of using Windows but this learning isn't really forced, you will find that you 'just pick things up naturally'. Soon your friends and people will see you as 'a geek' unless you can get them using linux too. It's good to have a friend that's also just starting with linux, preferably Ubuntu as it helps you both get to grips with it all a lot faster but it's worth avoiding a scenario where either of you feels forced into it or sees you as a guru.

A dual-boot setup is a perfect way for a person to be able to get to grips with it at their own pace.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
Although it's possible to install Ubuntu or some of the many other linux 'distros' inside Windows this is seldom very satisfactory for long. Some people do manage to use Ubuntu's 'Wubi' for years but it does rely on a lot of other Windoze systems to work properly and for Windows to co-operate with this rival 'Operating System' (OS). The proper 'dual-boot' setup, which i just gave links to, combines the best of both OS's. Xp is particularly good now (at last!) but if you are using Vista then the special instructions about halfway down the 2nd link are well worth taking notice of
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Resizing%20partitions%20with%20Windows%20Vista
Most of us keep a working Windows because it's very difficult to reinstall and reinstate, especially given the lack of applications that are fairly standard to a computer these days. Sometimes Windows is useful for odd games and things or for some hardware before these things are given support in linux. Also it's good for a laugh or for when friends ask for advice from you. Last time i booted into the Windows part of my dual-boot it was to uninstall some programs i probably wont need again. I then needed to do a defragand succumbed to updates and a virus scan before it let me leave lol. As it's Xp i was able to leave fairly fast and then reduced it's 'partition' (it's share of my split hard-drive) lol

I'm definitely not a geek but have been using linux for a few months now! This will happen to you too.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

A note of caution about ati cards. While the 1000 series was/is excellent the next 2 series, both the 2000 series and the 3000 series weren't quite that good. The ultra new 4000 series is excellent again but i don't know anyone that is already using one in linux.

The 4000 series are ultra-new and so they are all quite expensive but even so they are well worth the money and quite a bargain but not if they don't work in linux. I suspect they do work but i just haven't seen anyone using one yet. Often people only move over to linux on old hardware. Once they've used linux for a while they realise there's no real need to upgrade hardware much but occasionally people do get newer hardware for their linux system. Ubuntu is well recognised as a great 'entry level' linux and some people move on to other distros once they've go used to linux, although many return to Ubuntu later. Most distros are quite similar in many ways, using the same programs and sharing the same command-line commands but each does have unique qualities. As i mainly stick with Ubuntu (although i do enjoy using Wolvix too http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix ) that means most of the people i chat with tend to be newer linux users and therefore (probably) most likely to be using older hardware.

Sorry i keep writing such long and irrelevant posts! lol
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi Lone Eagle,

Please try this procedure:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7197740#post7197740

Regards,

Mark