I am new to Linux and trying to configure my wireless card with Mandrake 10. I have a Winbook V220 laptop. I am also using the Netgear WGR614 wireless router. I want to use Linux, but if I can't access the internet using the wireless adapter, i'm going to have to uninstall it. the specs for my laptop (from the Winbook site) are:

Processors

* Desktop Class Intel® Pentium® 4 and Celeron®
Processors (Northwood)
* 533 MHz (133MHz Quad-pumped) Front Side Bus pending processor
* Micro PGA2 (micro PGA478 socket) Package

Operating System

* Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
* Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional

Memory

* 512 MB (one slot with 512 MB module)
Maximum
* 200-pin SODIMM module type
* PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM

Level 2 cache

* 256 KB Advanced Transfer On-die Cache for
Celeron® processors
* 512 KB Advanced Transfer On-die Cache for
Pentium® 4

Video

* SiS M661FX integrated
* 8x AGP Graphics
* Up to 64MB implementing SMA video architecture
* 3D Graphics engine
* OpenGL support

Hard disk drive features

* ATA, Enhanced IDE Interface
* ATA/100,ATA/66, ATA/33 support
* 9.5mm Thick
* End User Upgradeable

Active matrix TFT LCD options

* XGA: 1024x768
* 16 Million Colors at Max Resolution

Optical drive options*

* 24x Write/10x Re-write/24x Read/8x DVD Combination
* 2x DVD±R/RW Write/16x CD-R Read-Write/8X CD-RW

Internal modem

* V.92 Modem/V.44 Fax Compatible†

LAN

* 10/100 Ethernet

Ports

* Parallel: 1, Standard/Bi-directional/EPP/ECP Capable
* USB: 2, v2.0 Compatible
* Video: 1, 15-pin VGA
* IRDA - 1, SIR/FIR, v1.1 compliant
* IEEE1394: 1, 4-pin non-powered
* PCMCIA: 1, 32bit PC Card
* Line Out: 1, Stereo
* Microphone: 1
* TV Out: 1, S-Video (with adapter)
* Modem: 1, RJ-11 Jack
* LAN Connector: 1, RJ-45 Jack
* Wireless: 802.11b/g Mini PCI internal

Additional Software

* DVD: WinDVD Version 4.0 or Later
* CD-RW: Natively supported by Windows® XP
* NTI CD Creator v6.5
* Norton Anti-Virus 90-Day Trialware

Industry Standards

* PC2001 Compliant
* Designed for Windows® XP Home and Windows® XP
Professional
* Wired For Management 2.1
* Instantly Available PC
* ACPI v.1.0b

Security

* Hardware: Kensington Lock Support
* Software: BIOS Password Setup and Boot Options

Welcome to LQ! While you've posted a nicely complete set of specs, the one bit missing that we need to know is the make and model of the wireless card. Is it an internal card? If so, try running lspci in a console and post the output. If it is an external card, please post information about that card.

i tried running lspci, but i couldn't get anything to come up. (i'm not hardware savvy). i checked my computer and it just says WLAN-G. when i called tech support, that was also the name they gave me as the manufacturer. they said it was a winbook component. also, other information i could find: NIC firmware: version 2.05.08; driver version: 3.0.18.2 and network driver: 3.0. does that help?

Unfortunately no. The real information I'm after is the wireless chipset that Winbook used in this card. I highly doubt that winbook makes its own wireless chips, which means they buy them from somebody, and the identity of that somebody determines which driver you need to install. That was why I asked you to post the output of lspci, if this is a PCI card, lspci frequently lists the chipset in the output. WLAN-G doesn't help either, that just says that it is a wireless card capable of running according to 802.11g standards.

If you want to save the output of lspci to a file so you can post it, enter lspci > filename.txt at the console and the output will be saved to a file named filename.txt. That means you can open it in a text editor and past the contents in a post here. Also, be sure that you are running as root when you run lspci.

If none of this is working, the shot in the dark worth taking is ndiswrapper . Since many wireless card manufacturers refuse to write linux drivers, the ndiswrapper team has come up with a way to use windows drivers in linux. The downside is that it doesn't always work. However, if you have the windows drivers for your card, this may be a way to get wireless working without knowing the chipset. But you need to be able to identify which files are your wireless card drivers. In order to get this to work, you will also need to install the kernel source code from Mandrake.

i should have asked this before. what is the console? is that part of the linux operating system? i'm using windows now. maybe i'm not running lspci at the right place. ..?

The console is the linux command line interface. Programs like kterm, xterm, aterm are all consoles. The lspci command does have to be run from linux, Windows is going to have absolutely no idea what to do with it. However, if you are in windows, you could check the device manager and see if it has additional information about the wireless card.

i think this is the information you wanted about the wireless card. please let me know if this is correct:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX Host (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0003
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 14)
00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS961/2 SMBus Controller
00:02.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] FireWire Controller
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX/741/M741/760/M760 PCI/AGP

That is the correct output, unfortunately your wireless card isn't listed. The ethernet controller is you wired connection. At this point I think you have a couple of options. If it boots windows, look in the device manager for make and model information on the wireless card. The other thing to do would be to call Winbook and ask them what chipset this card uses.

winbook tech support said that the chipset was intel pro 2200.

That is actually good thing since there is a project creating native Linux drivers for that chipset. You can find the software here . The bad news is that this project is still relatively new, so the software may be a touch on the flaky side. I did find a site that does talk specifically about how to get this driver working with Mandrake since apparently it is part of Mandrake 10.1.

Have a read through these sites and see if you feel like taking on this challenge.

thanks for all your help. i'll have to check it out and see if i can navigate the terminology and all to get my wireless working.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Wireless Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

i have no idea what any of the information on those pages mean. i am below a novice in programming. i'll see if i can get a friend to figure this out. i don't understand what to do and most of these instructions seem to assume some basic level of programming that i don't possess.

Um, not really. The only real assumption is that you can use a console to enter commands. All you really need to be able to do is download and then unpack the source code and then compile it. If you can type make, then you have all the "programming"skills you need. If you've got specific quetsions, post 'em and we'll see if we can't get you going.