I need help installing firmware and driver for wireless card

mntamimi · 02-03-2005, 02:50 PM

Hey- I'm trying to get my wireless card to work in my laptop (dell latitude ls). And I think I've found some good guides to that end, but unfortunately they are still over my head.

Basic Info: I am a complete newbie. This is my first try (this laptop). I am using Suse 9.2- it seemed to install just fine last night, as best as I can tell. The laptop has an internal NIC (I thought I read something about this being an issue once). The card does not even seem to be getting power- no lights go on ever. The card is Netgear WG511

This is the card, which is apparently workable:
http://tuxmobil.org/pcmcia_ci10502.html

Also I found this page that has some guidance:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...=149#poststart

The problem being that it all still goes over my head. For example- I am told that I need to install firmware and a driver- I would have no idea how to install firmware on my wireless card. Same with the driver. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out if the firmware is for the card or the laptop.

On that second link 'dmoore' has a step by step guide, but step 4 confuses me.

Anyone feel like explaining in a way that someone with zero linux or any other commandline experience could understand?

Thanks!

csfalcon · 02-03-2005, 02:57 PM

NdisWrapper should work with that card, what NdisWrapper does is use the windows driver on Linux. Here is my notes on installing NdisWrapper. www.csfalcon.com/index.jsp?topic=NdisWrapper

mntamimi · 02-03-2005, 03:32 PM

Thanks for the suggestion and the link to your site (I'll definitely peek around your guides).

But I was trying to do it the other way, with out the ndiswrapper. One reason is because I don't have the windows files I'd need to use that. Also, I've yet to be able to really install anything. Never gotten it right. And a lot of software install guides have lines like the following- which I just don't get at all.

Quote:

Kernel Source is needed for the compilation of NdisWrapper, make sure you have the source code for the running kernel and there is a link to the kernel source from the modules directory

ln -s /usr/src/linux-<kernel-version>/ /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/build/

BTW, I hope that didn't come across as unappreciative- far from the truth.

csfalcon · 02-03-2005, 04:27 PM

The command

Code:

uname -r

will tell which kernel version you are running.

once you find that out,

Code:

cd /usr/src/

, and see if "linux-<kernel-version>", with <kernel-version> being the output of "uname -r", is there.

If it is not then you'd have to install it from either the CD or internet. You should be able to with the command

Code:

yast -i kernel-source

if you have internet connection. Or you can go into the Yast gui and find kernel source in package manager. I am not too familiar with Suse.