I have tried installing the system five times now. I get the base system installed through a wired network. After this I have tried to install the firmware needed for my network adapters. I installed the firmware-realtek package successfully. The issue is configuring my wireless card. When I run iwconfig it shows that I do not have any wireless network installed. I have gone through many forums and tried many solutions others have posted without success. The other issues I have are playing ISO files. I have tried using mplayer, vlc, and many others but no luck. The issue is that it only plays the sound but no video. Again I have tried researching this but no solution found yet. So since school just started and I would like to have my computer running Debian I am requesting help installing from the ground up. I would have loved to fixed my own issues but I currently do not have the time since I go to school full time and I work full time. I have began reading "The Debian System" but I still have a lot to read and learn. So to anyone that can help me either fix my installation or help me reinstall with all the sources, drivers/firmware, programs, audio/video, and a few extra tips I would not only be grateful but I willing to pay using paypal. My laptop is a thinkpad edge 15 with the turion x2 and raedon 4250 model. If you are willing to guide me through the install/fix process please let me know. As far as communication I can use aim or email. Thank you.

Hello,

I understand you're in a hurry to get everything up and running but considering the number of questions/problems you've mentioned in your post I advice you to take it one step at the time. As you indicated yourself you're new to Linux and want to learn. Well, if we start answering all of your questions or asking you to provide information concerning the multiple problems, then I'm sure you'll loose track very soon.

So, first piece of advice:
Take it one step at a time.
Set your priorities.
Post one question per thread to keep focus on the conversation.

Your first decision needs to be: what do you want to fix first? Then we start from there. And don't mention payment, this is a community of volunteers to help people with their Linux questions/problems. We do it as volunteers in our free time because we love Linux and what's related to it and because we're all addicted to free and open source.

Let us know where you want to start and we'll take it from there.

Looking forward to your participation in the forums. Have fun with Linux.

Kind regards,

Eric

Thanks for the confidence. Ok can we start with my wireless issue. I have already installed firmware-realtek. Using lspci: 09:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10). The realtek package contains the drive I need correct? So my question is how do I configure it or how to I set it up to work.

Try installing firmware-linux-nonfree

Hi,

Have a look at this page from the Debian Wiki. It might get you on your way and teach you the basics in the same time.

Kind regards,

Eric

Update: still no luck as of yet. I read and reread the Wifi wiki link that was posted and I attempted to use network manager and wicd. They installed correctly with no errors. But when I configured wicd like the website suggested (removing bottom portion of the information) I lost ethernet access. So I reconfigured it back to how I had it and now im back to the drawing board. Any ideas? I thought about reinstalling debian and when configuring network provide the firmware needed for the Wifi. The only question I have is does the rtl8192se download work as is or do I need to compile it first. Thanks in advance.

Hello,

It depends on what you download if you need to compile or not. Did you download a source package? Another thing, did you add non-free to your repositories and run update & upgrade after that? This page is specific to your NIC apparently. See if it gets you any further.

Kind regards,

Eric

Update: I have tried installing the firmware from the page you recommended. The results seemed to only affect my wired realtek driver since that was the only one to show up in my network manager. Then I tried running wicd to configure the wlan0 but instead I lost my tethering capability to my DROID bionic. I can no longer tether via usb. So I removed the wicd package but still no tethering. But I did find a promising solution I am going to try found on http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...debian-907650/ but if anyone can advice on how to get my tethering back I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for all the help so far.

Try with non-free network install CD; http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/ (Yellow box).

Will take it from there.

You might like to download this freebie book :-

http://linux.2038bug.com/rute-home.html

On my Debian system I have non free wifi driver in /lib/firmware/ ; if you place it in there & reboot, it should get loaded ready to use, & wicd should then let you configure your wifi connection.

Good luck, & enjoy the learning process.

Post your /etc/apt/sources.list.

Stupid question I know but have you made sure you have wireless-tools installed?

Yeah I have installed both network-manager-gnome and wireless-tools without any issues. But when I run sudo iwconfig it just says no wireless extensions and wlan0 does not appear as an option. I tried to follow the link I provided since he was able to get it resolved but after I install my headers I don't seem to find the folders it says to copy. So now I reinstalled debian using the non-free firmware netinstalled. My ethernet showed up fine. I ran an aptitude update and upgrade and just installed g++ compiler for school. Where do I go from here? Should I try the links again and post results or should I contact realtek to get more information? Again thanks for everyone for helping.

As you appear to be in such a hurry :-

Go & download the 'Knoppix' CD (knopper.net), whilst booted into Debian, mount the CD, change into the /lib directory on the CD, then as root, do 'cp -a firmware /lib', do 'ls /lib', & you should see a directory named 'firmware' that you just copied from the Knoppix CD.

Reboot your Debian installation without the Knoppix CD in the drive. You should now be able to configure your wifi with wicd.

Please note - this isn't the proper way to do it, but it does work. (I used this 'cheat', before my card was supported by Debian)

I want to say thanks for reading and answering my post. But I have come to realize that the only way I will really learn to use debian is by fixing my issues instead of avoiding them. Like you said that's not the proper way to fix it, so I think im going to keep trying. Thanks for the reply. Also I will provide my source.list after I get off work.