Not sure where to post this, so I posted it here.

I am new to linux. I have had approx. 7 days experience with it now in my entire life.
I have acquired the linux slackbook, and read through that.
I have successfully installed linux backtrack on my laptop and configured lilo to dual boot backtrack and XP.

That is about as far as I have gotten.

So, Laptop specs: Dell 6000d, ATI Radean x300 (256), Centrino 1.6ghz, 1gb ram, 80 gig wd scorpio, WUXGA display (1920 x 1200)

I have googled and found the drivers for my graphics card and my wireless card. The problem i am having is: I have absolutely no idea how to install them.
When I configured Lilo to dual boot, I used the VIM editor - is there an easier way to configure config files? I have read through the install files for both those drivers, and I still have no idea what they are talking about (prolly because of my n00bness).

So, the main issue is I cannot get my wireless card configured / have no idea how to.
i go to: ifconfig eth0 up (eth0 is my wireless card)
Okay, then I to iwconfig eth0 essid any key (mykey)
okay.
Now what?
I go to startx, and go to firefox and nothing happens.
I open up the GUI wireless utility and no networks are detected. My network is a b/g network with 128 wep, and it is a belkin wireless router.
What am I doing wrong? Do I need to install the specific drivers for my wireless card even though it is "detected" as eth0?
Any help would be appreciated!

Oh, most people I have talked to say that backtrack is not a "good" linux for beginners. I do not care, if I can figure this out, then the others will be nothing.

TIA!

-_=XyxoniS=_-

After typing iwconfig, you'll have your eth0 interface associated with the wireless network. But it does not yet have an ip address. You should be able to tell by typing this:

ifconfig eth0

If you don't see something like this:


eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0A:E1:BA:50:06

inet addr:192.168.129.155 Bcast:192.168.129.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:f1ff:feab:5006/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:964642 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:558730 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:278371832 (265.4 MiB) TX bytes:78077070 (74.4 MiB)
Base address:0xdf40 Memory:fcfe0000-fd000000

In particular, the "inet addr:", then you don't have an IP address. You can get one like this:

dhclient eth0

or, on some linux machines:

dhcpcd eth0

-kev