I have been using Ubuntu on my desktop for about a year now with beautiful results and few problems. I have been hoping to get my old Toshiba laptop set up so I can hook up my wireless and work outside when the weather is nice. To date, I have had VERY little luck with even getting close to that goal.

I have tried Ubuntu (which wouldn't even load properly) and Xubuntu 8.04 - which looks good, but will not recognize that I have a D-Link DFE-670TXD PCMCIA LAN adapter. I have also tried Puppy 4.1 - which runs smoothly and looks nice, but it doesn't even recognize that I have a PCMCIA socket.

The PCMCIA wireless adapter, which I have very little hope of connecting until I get the wired adapter to work, is a Linksys Model WPC54G ver 1.2 wireless G.

The trouble-free experience I have had with my desktop has allowed me to bypass the steep learning curve I had with DOS back in the '80s & '90s, so now I am poorly prepared to try to troubleshoot my problem.

Surely there must be a distro that includes support for what I thought was a very common laptop from the late '90s.

I would appreciate any tips as to the most likely direction to take.

try
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/vie...0fc11584b4cbc2

for knowing the name of the module to load

2) if that works in puppy...do something similar to this
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/vie...c4c1a9f0f56805

so it autoloads for you. Note the last link is not exact model but you get the idea...do it in terminal first....if that works....hit up arrow to see each command and save that in rc.local

I would try finding the distro that runs smoothest on the laptop first.

The issue here is that the driver for the chipset in your wifi card is not loaded (either a native linux driver or otherwise). If you dont know the chipset, you could try to find it online (from your desktop, etc.) and see if there is a linux driver available. If there is not a driver available, you could always look up ndiswrapper and use the windows driver to connect.

Hope this helps

Tim.

Thanks, we are in agreement there. I have tried Ubuntu (too heavy), Xubuntu (close, but no cigar), Antix (not a chance), and Puppy (looks good, feels right). I did a full install of Puppy, and unless someone comes up with something that sounds MUCH better, I will keep plugging at making Puppy work.

I have waded through piles of (often contradictory) information on how to hook up a PCMCIA wired LAN card - which I feel is a must before I even ATTEMPT a wireless connection. To date, I have had absolutely ZERO success. In fact, as far as I can see, the system doesn't even recognize that I have a PCMCIA socket.

hmmm some ideas there?

can you check your bios for that lappy has a setting turned on for wireless lan etc?

can you check your bios site for firmware updates please?

2) what kind of card slot is it...some newer ones are usb...and do not have a true pcmcia slot?

3) can you post a link or give details of the pcmcia card you are trying to use pls?

I'm sorry.....I missed that part of the post the first time I read it The first thing would check in that case is to see if the pcmcia kernel hook is loaded. Im not sure about how to find out in puppy linux ( heard of it, but never used it), but depending on the processor in your system (celeron 466???) I may suggest trying archlinux, although if you are still running a small hard drive, it may be too large for your system.

I will try to look at the puppy site and see if I can figure out how to set up custom kernel hooks. Hope we can get you running soon.

I think my biggest hurdle will be getting the system to just recognize that it should be trying to connect to a PCMCIA card.

Thanks to all who have responded.

assuming you can install or have installed ndiswrapper you can try to run the xp driver?

let me know if you do not have wine...which can unzip the file from
http://support.dlink.com/products/vi...=DFE%2D670TXD#

From everything I can find, the card itself should work ok with the Linux driver. What I am seeing is a failure to even recognize the PCMCIA socket.
I have been searching the Puppy forums, and it looks like this may be an issue with the most recent versions of Puppy. I may be best off to back down & do some more study - the old laptop isn't going anywhere & I don't have enough hair left to worry about it.

Thanks for the efforts.

your not likely to find a distro to support that wifi card
what you need to do is get that card working with what ever distro you like
here is how to do it with damn small linux http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index...Wireless_Cards
because DSL is such a minimal system the same thing should work with what ever distro