Re: Newbie question -Wireless Cards

computeruser staggered into the Black Sun and said:
I haven't been able to get on the internet on my laptop via any of
Fedora 8, Mandriva 2008 KDE and Knopix 2004. The card is a Linksys
Wireless-G Notebook Adaptor 2.4 GHz (802.11g) [Model No:WPC54G ver

Many, many laptops have 802.11 cards that were built by the lowest
bidder and have no specs available. No specs = no native Linux support.
This is why you check to make sure the hardware on a $FOO is supported
before you buy a $FOO. A *lot* of 802.11 NICs are supported using
ndiswrapper; google "ndiswrapper fedora" for information on how to get
that running. You will probably need the 'Doze driver CD for that NIC.

If it matters the laptop is a HP Pavilion series (ze4540us).

Make and model# *always* matter when you're talking about laptops. I
see there's no page for this model on tuxmobil.org, so you should write
something up and submit it once you get everything working.

Where can I find tips on installing drivers for devices?

A lot of stuff (disks, CD/DVD+-RWs, wired NICs, video cards, monitors,
sound cards, most common USB devices) will just work. Some things
(802.11, printers, scanners, special-purpose USB devices) will require
more work. If I see a device that I don't already know how to make
work, I tend to grep -r for that an identifier unique to that device in
/usr/src/linux/drivers/ , then if any results come back, build that
module and modprobe it. See above for 802.11 things. HTH,

--
I think I'll go hold my head under a bucket of vodka until I feel
better.
--localroger on kuro5hin.org, 06/26/2003
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
.

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