alright, ive searched for an answer long enough- now im asking for some help. =)

im new to linux; sadly, my first linux machine is a p3 laptop with no optical drive. and it cant boot from usb ( i dont think). i actually installed linux by swapping the HD with another lappys, but that took a while and i dont want to do it again.

I have a 2wire pcmcia wireless card that I have been trying to install, i have ndiswrapper and the correct drivers from the wiki list (i found the chipset and all), but for some reason the ndiswrapper -i command, with and without sudo, get a "command not found" response in the terminal. ditto for when i tried editing smb.conf to change my workgroup.

i think i read somewhere that xubuntu doesnt come with development tools installed- could that be the issue?

i started out using freespire, but it was slow as hell. i love xubuntu so far, but i need to get this to work!


i DO have a working lan connection, though, so...
so,

1) why all the command not found messages
2) how can i install without a cd drive?

You can try installing the development tools sudo aptitude install build-essential

As for installing things without a CD or USB, try http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html or if you have a floppy, some distros like Debian can be installed from a floppy.

ok, after following some directions in software properties to install the community source ubuntu, i was able to properly DL and install the development tools. but now when i run the make command (or any variation, like make uninstall or make install) i get error 1 or error 1. something about "unable to write to file. i ran the command both as sudo and not.

i restarted and tried again to make sure, but to no avail.

i run "sudo make uninstall" (because without sudo it says permission denied).

it tells me to run uninstall as many times as necessary until no "removing" messages appear.
it says "removing /lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper
/bin/rm: cannot remove '/lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper': is a directory
make: *** [uninstall] Error 1


whats it mean??

im so sorry, im such a n00b. im trying, though!!!

If your card has an Orinoco chipset, you shouldn't be messing around with ndiswrapper anyway. There are native Linux drivers here: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...x/Orinoco.html

or here: http://www.nongnu.org/orinoco/downloads/

lspci returns "0000:02:00:0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 1)


i thought i had the right win drivers, and that i needed ndiswrapper... where's that list to lookup the chipsets?

ALSO: i pulled out the pcmci card, and opened system-> networking and it was not there, closed network, put the card back in, reopened networking, and it was on the connections list, active.

but still no internet unless im plugged in with a lan cable.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/index.php

Unfortunately, it says there is no native support for a Prism/Javelin chipset.

OTOH, googling "prism javelin linux" turned up this:

http://www.ioi.knaw.nl/~heimel/compu..._wireless.html

right, i found that one too, sadly..

$ unzip wlansim2000g60xwinxp.exe

$ ndiswrapper -i PRISMA00.inf
Installing prisma00

$ ndiswrapper -l

i see that he unzips the drivers and all - which, coincidentally, are the same ones i had before i found that page.

then he runs the "ndiswrapper -i PRISMA00.inf command. to that, i get sudo: ndiswrapper: command not found.

there was something in the ndiswrapper file about accessing the utility from /usr/sbin but theres nothing there pertinent.

i DLed ndiswrapper to the desktop, unzipped it there, opened the file, dragged the inf and sys files into the ndiswrapper file, then right clicked and selected "open terminal here".

im guessing thats what im doing wrong? but i dont know what im supposed to do instead. i wish i new more about linux and how it works... its kind of a black box still, but i can only read so fast!

ahhh more news

i checked out the sourceforge mediawiki installation guide for the 1000000000th time and:

You need a recent kernel at least 2.6.6 or 2.4.26 with source. Under Red Hat or Mandrake, the sources can be installed using the package kernel-source<kernel-version>.rpm command. Make sure there is a link to the kernel source from the modules directory. /lib/modules/VERSION/build should be a link to the kernel source, where VERSION is the version of the kernel you are running. If there is no link, you'll get an error at the make install step. To create a link, assuming the kernel sources are present, use the command

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


the lib modules version (2.6.15-23-386) had no link. so, i ran the code above. i now have a link called "build", which is the file that was missing according to the earlier errors, but it is a broken link. so... missing kernels???

where do i get those?

Missing kernel sources.. They are about 34MB so you will have to put them on a usb stick or something to install.

Actually, borrow a usb ethernet adapter, something with a Realtek 2139 chipset. It will be recognised and give you an ethernet port to drop a cable into.