I'm trying to set up a wireless network for my linux machine.
I'm not sure exactly how to query my computer to spit out the specs you need to help me, but I would work with anyone willing to provide some assistance, I thank whoever can ahead of time.

What sort of machine? Laptop? Integral wireless? PCMCIA card? Are you using WEP? WPA?

Simply: System>Administration>Network will show if you have any recognized wireless device installed...

My laptop is a HP pav. ze2000
wireless encryption is WEP
it's a dsl modem/router

I most certainly have a wireless card, however, it's not recognized.

when you are in root
go to the terminal

in bash type "lspci"

this will tell you your chipset on your card


other good commands to know are ifconfig and iwconfig. The man pages are well documented for both.

Since I own a Compaq R3xxx, your HP's cousin I am assuming you are talking about the built in wireless card on it.

More than likely this is a Broadcom chipset based card. While broadcom has not released anything so the good Linux hackers can write a driver do not fret.

IF it is a Broadcom based chipset there is now a way to get Native Linux drivers.

I found this link on google, and I am using my broadcom chipset with FC5 as I am typing. No ndis wrappers needed...

lists.infradead.org/pipermail/fedora-ppc/2006-March/000804.html

while it is for PPC, this worked great on this laptop (not the R3000 but an OLD compaq 1215US with a Broadcomm Linksys PCMCIA card)

You will also want to visit bcm43xx.berlios.de/
this is there the bcm43xx home page is.

I will not go into detail right now since it is unknown if you even have a broadcom chipset for sure. Also the instructions are pretty good on those web pages.

I am going to check that for you and get back to you as soon as possible.

The first command provided gave these results:
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 5a3f
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 11)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge
00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:14.6 Modem: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SB400 - AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
05:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
05:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
[root@localhost ~]#

here is the line that identifies your card
"05:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)"

This is definitely a broadcom chipset

you can download bcm43xx-fwcutter here
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...004-1.fc5.html

untar the package

There is a readme in there with good instructions

Basically how I did this was

su -
<then type in your password>

1) downloaded the bcm43xx-fwcutter file to my home directory
2) aquired my linksys driver from the internet
** note** I have not tested this but... All of the drivers for the bcm43xx should work on these based cards. The Motorolla driver did not decompile.

IF the windows drivers for your card do not uncompress you may want to try the drivers for the linksys bcmwl5.sys file. this is in the linksys driver for the Linksys WPA54G card...bcm4306 is the specific chip for my specific card... Since it has a different chip number, it may not work. I have not tested this.

3) go to the directory where you downloaded the bcm43xx program. You can right click and let package manager install it, or rpm -i <type the file name without the aligators>

this installs the bcm43xx-fwcutter~ driver

4) in the terminal go to where you saved your windows drivers for the card and execute

bcm43xx-fwcutter -i .

This tells you which file the program knows how to rip

next bcm43xx -w <driver recomendation>

as an example - my case was "bcm43xx-fwcutter bcmwl5.sys"

this extracts the firmware. IF successful your terminal will show all the files being extracted.

Move these new files to the directory /lib/firmware

5) check a few things
a) modprobe bcm43xx
b) ifconfig this listes what the computer sees
* your wireless card most likely will be eth1 *
c) goto the network manager (sorry not under fedora right now so I can not look for it - but it should be in the drop down menus)
d) check network and find the setting for your card. In there it is very intuitive - just set up your essid, and other stuff, then check ENABLE - without enable - fedora core does not turn it on.

* you may need to shut down your wired ethernet card. 2 ways of doing this. Through the network manager or
"ifconfig eth0 down"

You may need a reboot here. I did not once I clicked enable. After that I was running on wireless.

I have not tested the encription but I have been reading about problems with it.

this method also worked with Ubuntu 6.06 - which is what I am running at the moment.

I use DSL, should I get the linksys dsl router
also, with my installation of the fwcutter-004 I used
yum install <filename and location> which did a bunch of crap I assume to be the installation process, however, is there a command i can type into the terminal to assure myself the fwcutter is installed?

By the way, thank you for your help thus far.

in the gnome network manager basically check off DNS and type in you network name in it.

alternatate
su -

ifconfig eth1 essid yournetowrkname

to set the essn

Easier to just go through the gnome-network manager however.

I run mine off an access point, it should not matter

as for installed, do an

iwconfig

if you see your wireless connection - it is installed

iwconfig is for wireless cards. Type man iwconfig for more information

Update
I can not get the broadcom linksys card I am using (WPC54G) to work at all using kernel 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5. I can get it to see my dhcp devive, with the correct address. I can not get this to connect or anything other than that. Stay with the older 2.6.16.x kernel for the above directions.

If anyone has been able to get a broadcom chipset devive to work with 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5, please post how. For a kernel that is supposed to have built in support this stumps me.

Also for the non RPM file go here
http://developer.berlios.de/project/...?group_id=4547

I have had better luck ripping my own than with the RPM- except for 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5.

Just installed FC5 and can't find any place to enter WEP code. Any help greatly appreciated.

use man iwconfig

look for key/enc[ryption]
Examples :
iwconfig eth0 key 0123-4567-89
iwconfig eth0 key [3] 0123-4567-89
iwconfig eth0 key sassword [2]
iwconfig eth0 key [2]
iwconfig eth0 key open
iwconfig eth0 key off
iwconfig eth0 key restricted [3] 0123456789
iwconfig eth0 key 01-23 key 45-67 [4] key [4]
I have not tried it, so...