linux-wlan installation
 

I am running Mandrake 9.0 and am trying to install the wlan drivers to see if they work with my card (the site claims it will) however when it asks for my kernel source directory, I have no clue where it is. . .or where my pcmcia_cs driver is. If anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Kernel source should be located in /usr/source/linux/<kernel name> but I'm not 100%. I'm not on my Slackbox right now so I can't look it up. There might be a thread or 2 around here that has the info though.

Have you tried typing as root in a command line:

modprobe pcmcia_cs

? If you haven't, this should install it for you. After that's completed, you'll need to edit your /etc/modules.conf file to include:

alias eth0 pcmcia_cs

If pcmcia_cs is for your eth0 (primary NIC). You might also want to check in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules (if this is what it's called in Mandrake--I think it is though) and make sure you remove the # from the beginning of the line that says:

#/sbin/modprobe pcmcia_cs

to make it look like

/sbin/modprobe pcmcia_cs

If you don't have a line that says that in there (look carefully because it's a pretty large file), then you can always add it in there somewhere. Hope this helps.:D

sorry for all the problems, but I go to /usr/src/ but the only directory after that is RPM, there is no linux dir, I also tried the modprobe command as root and it said it couldnt locate module. . .i know the kernel is 2.4.19, the only files I found are kernel.h and kernel.h-2-4-19-16mdk but these are in the boot directory.
Thanks

Okay. When I get home tonight I'll see what I can find out for you. I know it's on your system somewhere. Try searching these forums in the meantime for "kernel source" and see what others have to say.

As for the modprobe thing, is that the correct module name? If so, you might have to download it from somewhere and install it. If so, go to www.google.com/linux and enter the exact name of your NIC card and see if you can find a place to download the module. After it's downloaded, you'll probably need to unpack it. If it's an RPM, then you'll probably have to do the rpm thing (I dont' know how to do this, sorry), and then install it from there using "insmo <modulename>". After that you can probably do the modprobe and you should be set up.

thanks a lot, i really appreciate it.
i also read that the source may have not been installed because i got only 2 cds in a magazine. i read in some post that the kernel source may have been in a 3rd cd. i am going to download it tomorrow and try to install everything, after tryint to find it in google as you suggested. Thanks.

Okay, here's a copy of where I went in my own system. Hopefully this helps you out.

I am presuming that this is where the kernel source resides. I'm not 100% though. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

If you think the source isn't installed, then you should definitely consider a new install. That's up to you though.

Why bother with doing a new install? You can easily download the source code of the kernel and compile a new kernel.

If you start up your ftp client (ncftp / ftp or whatever) and go to
ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ and get the linux-2.4.20.tar.gz (which is the latest stable kernel at the moment the 2.5 series are the development series)

when the file is downloaded which might take a while considering the size of it. :D you type in the following command after quitting your ftp client : mv linux-2.4.20.tar.gz /usr/src && tar -xvzf linux-2.4.20.tar.gz && rm linux-2.4.20.tar.gz

ln -s linux-2.4.20 linux
cd linux
make menuconfig
-----------------------
Ready to built your kernel with WLAN support !!

hope this helps you all out!

Thanks a lot Darl0rd and Texicle,, I will try this out in a while, I will let you know of the outcome.

hi, i was able to get the new kernel source and all that but when i did make menuconfig i got an error saying, unable to fing Ncurses libraries and that i need to install them before being able to do make menuconfig.

Thanks

For the record, Darkl0rd was correct. You didn't need to reinstall your distro, you just needed to get the kernel source. I should've said that. However, since you mentioned that you were getting all the disks I figured a reinstall wouldn't be a bad idea as it would have everything you needed.

I had similar problems regarding Ncurses once before when I was trying to install a program. I went through my system and Slack CD that I had and did a checksum. I found out that I had a CD that wasn't burned right. The distro installed properly, but some of the packages were incomplete/corrupted or missing. I ended up redownloading Slackware 8.1 and getting a good burn. A quick reinstall fixed my ncurses problem. You can check your CDs for the Ncurses libs and install them if you wish. You can also do as you mentioned before and download the whole iso and reinstall as well. It's entirely up to you and what you think will be easier. Personally, I'd download the whole distro and reinstall, but that's because I'm lazy.;)

Keep me posted on what you do and if it worked or not. :D

as for the ncurses library, it's quite common and I'm suprised you don't have it.
Do you have X ? if so type make xconfig instead.. otherwise you can do a command line menu 'make config'
make config always works, if it doesn't REINSTALL :)

i tried ´make xconfig´ and everything went smoothly, thanks to everyone who helped me out.