Okay, so, I'm (yet another) newbie to Linux, although I do have a small bit of knowledge about it (I have a desktop running Mandrake 10.1 Official); so on to my problem.

I have this laptop, an HP OmniBook 7100, it's a Pentium II, with 96mb of RAM (got it for free, so I can't complain) and an Orinoco Gold PCMCIA 802.11b wireless card with the pigtail cable and a homemade 'omni-spider' antenna. Right now I have the thing running Win98 (I know, blechhh..) and it can easily connect to just about any (un-WEPed) AP around, do a quick 'winipcfg' and I'm on the net.

But I don't like the inherent lack of security on Win98, and I want to be able to run the most powerful scripts around, thus I have decided that I need to get a functional distro up & running on the thing. This is when I decided to turn to you, the most knowlegeble people about Linux that I know: which distro to run?

First I tried to get the Mandrake 10.1 Official working,

I've already tried Knoppix 3.8.2, and _barely_ got Kismet running when running it Live (i.e. directly from the CD), but once installing it to my HD, Kismet just crapped out, and wouldn't function at all. In addition, Knoppix failed to detect the laptop's sound hardware (cs4232 I think), and thus doesn't really fulfill all my needs as a user. I never did get Airsnort working at all, live or from HD.

Ubuntu (Breezy Badger) wouldn't even boot up, probably due to the lack of enough RAM.

So, what should I do? I want to run Kismet and Airsnort, as well as the most powerful attack scripts available, so I know that I need Linux, but which one would be the easiest to set up, and which one would work with all my hardware? PLEASE help me, I have no idea what to do or where to turn...

And thank you for taking the time to read this.

You should try ndiswrapper to get wireless up and running (works in Fedora, Debian and probably other distros ) :

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net


If you have "apt" setup on your system then :

$ apt-cache search ndiswrapper

will show you all that you can install using "apt-get"

Make sure that the ndiswrapper module version that you install matches your linux kernel version (you can find this using "uname -r" ).

I haven't been able to get Ndiswrapper to work properly in Mandrake, and haven't even tried in Knoppix...

I guess my question was more of a "which distro will work with my setup straight out of the box, with minimal config'ging?"

At first I assumed it would be Knoppix, considering Kismet actually worked when run in Live mode (albeit verrrrrry slowly), but when I ran the "knoppix-installer" script, to put it on the laptop's hard drive, it no longer worked

Again, any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly, ignore the advice on using ndiswrapper with your ORiNOCO card. Not only is ndiswrapper not needed (there's a native driver for this card in the kernel), it won't work with Kismet.

Given the vintage and specs of the laptop, I'd suggest using a lightweight desktop environment - something like XFCE4 or Fluxbox. There are some security-based live CD distros that may be of interest - Auditor & Knoppix-STD. They may save you some setup.

For a permanent installation, but not one that will "just work," Slackware, XFCE4 and patched orinoco_cs drivers would be a great platform for your intended use. The Kismet docs are pretty good. Give them a read or two. http://www.kismetwireless.net/documentation.shtml

Finally, the cs4232 isn't plug & play either, but will work fine. A good reference for setting it up: http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...?module=cs4232

Isn't Knoppix 3.8.2 one of the Knoppix-STD versions? I tried it already

But I'm trying to get to Fluxbox right now, is that just a desktop suite or a full-fledged distro?

Thanks.

Okay, I'm downloading the auditor-200605-02-ipw2100.iso (remote-exploit said that is the one to use if you [meaning I] _do not_ have the ipw-2200 card), hopefully this one will work...

Are there any provisions to install it to the hard drive as a permanent solution?

Thank you.

Knoppix STD is, as I understand it, a specialized version that contains a number of networking, wireless and forensic apps.

I've no experience with Auditor. Not sure what it takes to install it to the hard drive.

Fluxbox is a desktop environment, not a distro.

Well, I can't get Auditor to work either

It boots okay, then I select 1024x768 resolution (which is what the notebook display is) and in the process of booting the system, it reads:

Accessing KANOTIX CDROM at /dev/hdc...
Total memory found: 92568 kB
Creating /ramdisk (dynamic size=62128k) on shared memory...Done.
Creating directories and symlinks on ramdisk.../linuxrc: 782: cannot create /var/lib/samba/unexpected.tdb: No space left on device
VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(3,2)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not synching: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,2)

And then it locks up. And THAT was in 'fail-safe' mode (option 7 at boot)....

In normal mode, when I select option 2 from the boot menu, it spews _this_ at me:

Accessing KANOTIX CDROM at /dev/hdc...
Total Memory found: 92568 kB
Creating /ramdisk (dynamic size-61972k) on shared memory...Done.

And then the same error message 782, about 'no space left on device'...

Argh! I am ready to rip my hair out about this!

PLEASE help me!!

I'm not ready to give up on Auditor, I really want to get it working.... PLEASE HELP!!

Searching the Auditor forums, I found this: http://forum.remote-exploit.org/viewtopic.php?t=841

An odd procedure, but it's all I could come up with. The only other references to this error were unanswered (I saw your post) or were answered with "Search, it's been fixed."

Already tried all those, didn't work....

I also searched the forums on remopte-exploit.org, and tried all that they suggested... Mass failure...

I am getting frustrated, since everyone just tells me "buy more RAM!" but I am not that well off financially; and I dont really have the $$ for more RAM right now...

There has to be another way...

Please! Help!

Thank you.

OK, plan B:

Dump Auditor, download and install Slackware/XFCE4, patch the orinoco_cs drivers and install Kismet. You'll be running in 30 minutes (not counting the distro download).

Okay, so a few months have passed, and a new job has come my way, along with a 128MB laptop RAM module traded to me, upping the total to 212 (or thereabouts) MB of RAM. So I finally got Auditor to work, and Kismet (barely) runs, but like I said, I'm a newb, and am looking for some type of GUI that could ease the AP-detection-and-connection process... It might also be worth mentioning that the Lucent Orinoco card I've got didn't come from the store: it was salvaged from an old Lucent Orinoco RG-1100 AP that was donated to me (I cracked the case and found the PCMCIA card plugged into a socket on a circuit board inside the device).

So should I continue with Auditor, or try Slackware/XFCE4, or what?

Some guidance here would be immensely appreciated.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I STILL haven't got AirSnort or AirCrack to work AT ALL, even the Windows ports of them just crapped out entirely... unlike the software (for winpuke again) that was on the Lucent/Agere site for AP-detection-and-connection, which worked stellarly (again on Win98).

Thank you for your input.

I'm not sure what GUIs might be available in Auditor. Check their site or maybe an Auditor forum, if one exists.

Slackware and XFCE4 are my preferred operating environment. It wasn't a completely serious suggestion. KDE and Gnome have some decent WiFi UIs. Any full-featured distro would work.

What is it that you're wanting to see that's missing? If Kismet is working (it seems to be), it will list the APs it finds. They can then be sorted by name, order of appearance, etc. and information about the network displayed. It is a GUI, albeit not a slick, Windows-style one.