how do I use the 'make' command? help with Netgear WG511T
 

MS has angered and disappointed me one too many times, so I'm trying to make the leap to Linux. I started with the Freespire distribution and the installation onto my empty notebook drive went fine. However, it seems that my Netgear WG511T wireless card is not set up.
I've been reading online about this, and read about the ndiswrapper and about madwifi. However, I can't even get started with these because I have know idea how to do anything with the 'make' command which the instructions for the ndiswrapper say I have to use.
(Boy, I mangaged pretty well in a windows environment, but every bit of online help I find for Linux seems to assume a far greater degree of knowledge and experience than I possess. Am I the only one noticing this, or is this a common complaint about Linux? )
So, I have a few questions...
1. Can you tell me where I can find a good online tutorial that is written so that a newbie like me can understand it?
2. Can you give me some specific pointers about using the 'make' command to use the ndiswrapper? How do I invoke the command prompt, and how do I get to the proper directory level?
3. Can you give me any specific pointers for getting the WG511T set up?
Thanks.
Dave

Ndiswrapper should already be installed - http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/...up_Ndiswrapper is a pretty good guide.

I don't know about ndiswrapper but I gather you're trying to install your driver? Often when you download software for linux you will download package.tar.gz

The steps to install are as follows. To invoke the command promt you need to open a terminal or shell (if you're running a GUI this will often be represented by a little black computer screen otherwise you'll find it somewhere in the menu as 'terminal').

When you invoke the shell or terminal your default location is the user home directory. Say you've download the package to here. The first thing to do is to extract the contents of the tarball:

tar -zxf package.tar.gz

A tarball is essentially files/directories bundled together, similar to a zip file I guess.

You will now have a package folder in your home directory.

You need to go into this folder to install the software.

cd package

and you will need to be the root user to install so do

su root and enter your root password.

Now your will invoke the following commands:

./configure
make
make install one at a time.

make runs the makefile. The makefile is the instruction set of how the code should be executed.

That sounds like something I can do. Thanks for getting me started!