Any advice for Debian Etch???
 

OK...so after days of trying to get Debian downloaded I finally have the three DVD's on my computer and now I am going to burn them to RW's. I have a HP Pavillion dv6000
AMD Turion 64x2 CPU
2 gb of ram
160 gb Sata hard drive
Broadcom Corp. Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI card rev 2
...this has been giving me every inch of issue on this F7; currently, and a few other distro's that I have tried. Should I use Ndiswrapper...if so what version? I'll get that downloaded at put on to my flash drive along with the driver referenced from ndiswrapper's website.
Another problem I have had with the last distro's that I have tried is some sort of freeze up during the GUI installation that in most cases has forced me to TEXT base install. I believe it has to do with the video card that I have in my laptop. That is Nvidia. Do I need to use the vesa driver setup on this distro? Or.......what works best to get a GUI installation complete?
I will have my ethernet cable hooked up....so I will have an internet connection upon installation. Yet weening off of that is the whole purpose so that I can use my wireless connection...Hopefully for the first time in many weeks................!!!
I have all ready learned much on Linux since I started into it many weeks ago. Going through different distro's and seeing the few pro's, and as well as the MANY cons.

You'll find the Debian installer remarkably good at detecting your hardware. However, if you've experienced problems with your wireless card on other distro's I'm afraid Debian might have some issues as well. But all is not lost, did you find and searched this website for compatability of your wireless chipset? http://linuxwireless.org/

Install Debian, including the wireless-tools package, and check if your wireless chipset is mentioned in the output of the iwconfig command.This should list all network devices, regardless of their status.

I have been through that site thru and thru......Not much of that site is really all that helpful to me. I stated in my message what kind of chipset I have. I need to know Driver/Firmware use for Debian. I think I remember seeing info on one of the faq pages on Debian's website about using ndiswrapper. If that is the case I have the files needed on a flash drive? One question on that I have is how do I mount my USB Flash drive, and access those files from CLI...? Does the wget command work in Debian? What about any repositories I can add after I get this OS installed?

Take a look at this how-to

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.p...er=asc&start=0

Also, try the nv driver for graphics during installation rather than vesa which is usually the default.

What does it mean to add Ndiswrapper/bcm43xx to /etc/modules?
Does the wget command work in Debian?

OK...I've got Debian running on my laptop...Still trying to work out the Nvidia driver issue. As far as the below stated...how do I access this exact info??? Networking on my desktop only shows my ethernet on eth1. It also recognizes my firewire on eth0. Should I install wlassistant?
The steps from this website/forum http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.p...art=0.....seem to be too simple. I am going to try the bcm43-fwcutter first. I mean the card he describes in the top of the page is a "Dell Wireless 1350." Mine is a "Dell Wireless 1390." I always appreciate any input given, and any input to be given. It builds a stronger learning curve!!! :)

Preparing the kernel
If you are using a stock kernel then chances are you already have everything you need in your kernel. If you need to compile your own kernel or are unsure how to check if the following options are enabled, see Kernel compile and install on Debian systems.

Code:
Networking -->
<*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack [*] Enable full debugging output
<M> IEEE 802.11 WEP encryption (802.1x)
<M> IEEE 802.11i CCMP support
<M> IEEE 802.11i TKIP encryption
<*> Software MAC add-on to the IEEE 802.11 networking stack [*] Enable full debugging output



Using the native linux driver (recommended)
As of kernel 2.6.17 support for Broadcom BCM43xx cards is available natively in linux (You should probably use a kernel >= 2.6.20 however). The addition of this driver stems from the addition of a Softmac layer in the wireless stack. Softmac is a software MAC (machine access control) layer that works with Linux's built-in 802.11 layer. This provides a great deal of WiFi protocol management features for chips that, unlike Intel Pro Wireless chip family, don't handle in hardware. (For more information see here.) The native linux driver, bcm43xx, works well and should probably be tried before Ndiswrapper. To try it out enable the following in addition to the options above:Code:
Device Drivers -> Network device support -> Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) -> Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio)
<M> Broadcom BCM43xx wireless support [*] Broadcom BCM43xx debugging (RECOMMENDED)
BCM43xx data transfer mode (DMA + PIO) --->

The 1350 and 1390 both use the Broadcom 43xx chipset so the install should be the same.

BCM43XX devices

The BCM43xx driver has been included into the Linux kernel since kernel version 2.6.17-rc2.

You could try following the Ubuntu docs if you like.. shouldn't be that far off from Debian..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...bcm43xx/Feisty

Thanks...I'll be giving that a try after I get this Nvidia driver figured out. On that...it says that I have to boot out of X. So how do I get out of X to load my Nvidia driver? I have the file from Nvidia's website in /home/endi1111/Desktop. In a thread I have in the newbie forum a fella there says doing it with apt-get. Oh also should I install the wlassistant onto debian?

I wrote a short tutorial on the wireless a while ago. It worked great for me, and 3 other people. So if all else fails, you might want to look at this. It is for the dell 1370 wireless, though, but it is specifically for Debian.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...debian-532130/

On that...it says that I have to boot out of X. So how do I get out of X to load my Nvidia driver? I have the file from Nvidia's website in /home/endi1111/Desktop. In a thread I have in the newbie forum a fella there says doing it with apt-get. Oh also should I install the wlassistant onto debian?

Thanks tromboneman...I will also use that as a reference. I am going to give bcm43xx a try first...then I will move on to the ndiswrapper. I first need any help I can get on this Nvidia driver issue??? Like i've said I have an Nvidia GeForce2 Go video card. I have the file from Nvidia's website on my desktop. Yet I have to be out of X in order to install that way. Then there is also the apt-get method as well...I just need to know that it will work with my video card.

Ugh go figure I did one a while back too for the broadcom 43xx ....

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...WPA_Encryption

Mine was a different card, not that it matters cause the chip was the same..

You MUST use the nvidia Legacy driver for that Video card. if you have the most current nvidia driver it won't work.. (I have the same graphics chip in my Dell laptop)



CTRL+ALT+F2
Login at prompt and su- to root
cp /etc/xorg.conf /etc/xorg.conf.bak backup your xorg.conf before you start
aptitude update update your package list
aptitude keep all freeze your current package selections before proceding
/etc/init.d/gdm stop shut down X
aptitude install build-essential module-assistant install compile environment
m-a update
m-a prepare use module-assistant to get your latest kernel source and install it
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.01-pkg1.run make the nvidia driver script executable
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.01-pkg1.run install the nvidia driver, follow the prompts, accept default when unsure


I believe nvidias script will modify your xorg.conf automatically. or you can edit it manually if you choose.


/etc/init.d/gdm start restart X


Proper driver for your nvidia 2 go GPU http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...43.01-pkg1.run

Installing the nVidia driver requires the sources of the installed kernel. Your best bet, for now, is using the drivers from the non-free repositories. If for some reason these fail (and there's a decent chance they will) your last option is building a new kernel from scratch (not that difficult) and install the nVidia driver you have now after that. But we'll come to that once you'll get there, try the repository solution first :)