getting wireless connection to work
 

I have an old ACER ASPIRE 3000 windows XP decided not to work on. I was given a fedora 10 dvd by my brother an told to try. Every thing works well for now except I can't get a wireless connection.

You need to post more information, what exactly do you mean it's not working. First, what desktop environment are using, Gnome or KDE. By default, gnome comes with nm-applet to connect to wireless networks. What does it say when you connect? Check you logs in /var/log, especially messages when any network errors would logged there.

I am using Gnome 2.24.3, processor is mobile AMD Sempron(tm). Kemel Linux 2.6.27.30-170.2.82fc10.i686

I also get an error nm-applet is not responding

In terminal run the command 'lspci' without the quotes.
We need to figure out which chipset your wireless card uses. Copy and paste the results here.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SG86C202
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] (r
ev 25)
00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS961/2 SMBus Controller
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Soun
d Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev
0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev
0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Et
hernet (rev 91)
00:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (re
v 02)
00:0b.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.
11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTra
nsport 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 Con
troller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscella
neous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760
PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
[RAY@localhost ~]$

You have a Broadcom BCM4318 wireless card. I am not a fedora man but the driver should already be installed. The driver name would be bcm43. It should be a matter of setting up the wireless network.

I am having trouble activating the wireless connection when I set it up. I am sure I am missing something simple but linux is new to me

fyi maybe fedora-11 has the driver by default ?

can you post the results of:
ifconfig
ifconfig -a
iwconfig

does the network manager applet on the top rite list any wireless access points ?
______________________

maybe the driver located here mite work: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
(worked with my: 03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01))
else yum install broadcom-wl mite do it

inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1040 (1.0 KiB) TX bytes:1040 (1.0 KiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A4:38:5A:5F
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-14-A4-38-5A-5F-F4-DF-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

[RAY@localhost ~]$ ifconfig-a
bash: ifconfig-a: command not found
[RAY@localhost ~]$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.