any help is greatly apreciated

I am to the point where I once again have wireless tools installed as well as pcmica ,but what the problem seems to be is that man won't let me write to the config like belkin told me to. It says to change ,replace wvlan with orinoco_cs and add Intaris etc but each of these files is write protected. So could anyone plaese help me out with how to write to config or write protected as this seems to be what is required thanks again for all the help thuss far laff. Or a simple way to text edit in root mode?

Some distro's will let you su in a terminal, then type kedit, or what ever editor you prefer. This will open the editor as root. Or just log out, end current session, and log in as root to make the changes.

Okay, first this is to be taken in no way offensive. It will more then likely display my complete low level of good brain cell's but here goes. After fighting with my Mandrake 10.1 install (prior to 3 years ago's RH experience) on how to actualy get my belkin f5d6001 ver3 to work. Useing ndiswrapper and the 8180 drivers after loading the kernel(sorry if that is worded wrong). Not to mention this being the same card that is allowing me to type this from my XP os. Why? am I still after all this time at a loss to realy comprehend linux. with it's ./config , make , make install. and it's /home/me/ or the kernel source /lib/etc... What am I doing on this machine that could or should ever realy need this extensive of a thought process? I feel as thogh linux is a hudge catch 22. If I could get on-line I could get the info(updates) I need to be able to get online to well you get it. This is by far not a gripe as to oh why won't it do the work for me. this is a why the heck can't just do the work myself or why is it so obscure as to how to do some of what I would consider a normal task on a working computer. Weather it be instaling a program or even to get the machine to respond to what I do. Be it for learning or working or even play. I am just realy frustrated that after all this devoted time to trying to understand it I still haven't felt comfortable with this OS? Any response like it says is apreciated.

Kryme

I felt the same way when I started out with Mandrake. I still do sometimes. But mostly, it just really works, not the "it just works (tm)" Windows has.

And what the hell is a f5d6001 ver3. Sounds like a WinXP memory dump .

It's a belkin dohicky (ahhh such technical terms). You might consider getting a book like Linux for non-geeks. You need help and it seems to me that you need more help then we can give only because you don't know enough to ask the right questions. When you get Linux working your success will be rewarded.

Go to your local library and see if they have any recently published books on Linux (say in the past 2 years). If not go to your local book store. There's Linux for Dummies, Linux for Non-Geeks, etc. I would also highly recommend the O'reilly books. They write some of the best computer books money can buy. I would be lost without my O'reilly Linux Pocket Guide.

The piece I am refering to is my pci wireless adapter or antena. thus the phrase the verry card that is letting me post this from my xp OS. Oh and I do apreciate the book references but to be honest I have five seperate books on Linux for dummies I will look into the non-geeks one. This has been an on going task like I stated though it's been a good three years of tampering. I started with a purchased copy of the redhat distro. I have since bought a copy of the mandrake distro as well as this newest iso. dist of 10.1. I belive I am just frustrated with the fact that I don't want to work so hard on just getting the OS to run smoothly. I'd rather devote my time to useing some of the more powerful tools that the OS offers. Hopefully this is a bit clearer of description. Thanks again for your responses.

Is there another wireless adapter that is more linux friendly?

I've merged your two threads together, because I think they're about the same thing. I have a problem, howveer because I don't know what your problem exactly is. Could you descibe it in a more detailed way? What are you trying to do and where do you fail? If you're following a tutorial/howto, please post a link to it and write where something's going wrong and what's the error message/what's different than it should be.

Okay I have the distro Mandrake 10 installed on a dual boot of Xp and mandrake. The problem I have is with my wireless card. It is the Belkin 802.11b card F5D6001 Ver. 3. Now from all of my searching I have found that people recomend this

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net./

as a cure to the problem I am haveing. Wich is the fact that the card is not recognized and no drivers are loaded for the card. Now following all the instructions given from that site and also going by other fourm posts such as

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=belkin

I got the drivers modified the source as explained and tried with all my might to install them with ndiswrapper. I then to my knowledge compiled the driver and loaded it using insmod -f rtl8180.o
Wait prior to all this I installed pcmica and the wireless tools and also the 2.6 and 2.4 kernels with no succes in either case. I simply am trying to connect to the internet wich I am so easiely doing from the 2nd part of this dual boot system.

I realy didn't mean to make this such a complicated matter. It is after all I am sure a hudge part of user error. Cause after all no one has ever realy acused me of being smart "smirk"

After installing drivers, check by typing "ndiswrapper -l". Type "modprobe ndiwsrapper" to load ndiswrapper. Go through iwconfig, changing settings as needed, then "ifconfig wlan0 up". After everything is set type "ndiswrapper -m". Edit /etc/modules (as root) add "ndiswrapper". Mandrake you have to go to Control Center and add new internet connection, use the wlan0.
ndiswrapper card list ( http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/List ) shows how to load ver 2.

I am to the point that I recive the driver present hardware present just a bit more and hopefully will be posting from lin side next time around.

This is the report I get from my machine which still can not get online:

ndiswrapper no version for "struct_module" found: kernel tainted.
ndiswrapper version 0.12 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver net8180 (Realtek,07/09/2004,5.170.0709.2004) added
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
VFS: Can't find ext2 filesystem on dev fd0.
forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.23.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:04.0 to 64
eth0: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 01043:80a7 bound to 0000:00:04.0
eth0: no link during initialization.
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
0000:02:01.0: 3Com PCI 3c920 Tornado at 0xa000. Vers LK1.1.19
eth0: no IPv6 routers present

this is after running a dmesg I am again lost .Dose or can anyone see what the ndiswrapper mod prob. is or any sort of remedy?

hard to keep a post new round theese parts

Hey Everyone!
I am by no mean an expert...as a matter of fact I am a newbie myself. I have tried f5d6001 v3 with RH but no luck. RH didn't even recognize the model of my PCI card. I decided to give fedora 3 a try and I am glad to say that I have no problem install the driver using ndiswraper-0.12 and realtek driver. Note: I modified rtl8180.inf to match with the one came with the cd. My PCI is up and running...now I have to learn how to configure it and use the darn thing.... have fun and good luck.