I have had loads and loads of troubles getting wireless to work with linux, i have read countless manuals and howto's but still no success. Right now i have slackware 9.1 installed. I have a Netgear MA401 Card with an PCMCIA adapted (PCI). Can anyone help me getting it up and working?

Here's the entry for that card from the LQ hardware compatability list.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...cat=149&page=1

Looks like it uses the orinoco modules (just like my Netgear MA311 which BTW works flawlessly).

Here's a step by step of installing a prism based card on a Slackware 9.1 laptop.
This works for me, but your mileage may vary. I'm not responsible for what might happen if you try this at home. That being said here we go......

1. Download pcmcia-sources, wireless tools, and wlan drivers. I recommend getting the pcmcia-cs and wireless-tools packages from the Slackware site, and getting the latest version of the wlan drivers from the authors site.
http://slackware.com/pb/?vers=slackware-9.1
ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/

2. Configure kernel so that cardbus support is not included. I include support for wireless networking and compile the drivers I'll need as modules, but some suggest that you do not include this. There's a great kernel config guide in the Slackware forum stickied at the top.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...&threadid=49035

3. Once your new kernel is up and running smoothly, it's time to install the wireless networking tools you downloaded in step one. First make sure the card is NOT INSERTED. Open a terminal and su yourself to root.

code: su -


code: enter root password


Browse to the directory where you have the pcmcia-cs and wireless-tools packages and start package tool.

code: pkgtool


Select the "install packages from the current directory" option, and follow the on-screen instructions. Then browse to the directory where you have the wlan tarball and untar them.

code: tar xzvf linux-wlan-ng*.tar.gz


Browse into the untarred directory and configure the driver. If you're using a prism based pcmcia card the default options are fine. If you're using a different setup, read the configuration script output and adjust the answers to your needs.

code: ./Configure


then make and install the drivers.

code: make all


code: make install



4. Reboot your machine. Once lilo (or Grub) comes up, insert your card. Hopefully, no errors show up at boot time. If they do, retrace your steps and see what might have went wrong.

5. Log in , open a terminal, su to root (see above) and type in iwconfig. If your card is listed in the output, the drivers are installed and working correctly.

The network configuration is pretty well documented in the wlan-ng driver package as well as their site, so I'll leave that part out of this document.

I hope this helps a bit, even if your system doesn't match these instructions. The best thing about doing it this way is you can easily remove the packages and start over if you fuxxoerd up somewhere. And remember, when posting questions about your particular install, try tp provide as much info as possible to get your question answered faster.
Good luck!

ok, i changed the kernel, got that all installed, and then i got the wlan-ng stuff, configured and got that installed, but now on boot i get this error:
insmod /lib/modules/2.4.22/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_plx.o: insmod orinoco_plx failed
insmod /lib/modules/2.4.22/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_plx.o: init_module: No such device
over and over again. I even went and got the updated orinoco drivers and installed them, still getting this error, any help?

in a terminal as root can you post the output from lsmod?

soundcore 3332 0 (autoclean)
prism2_plx 60956 0 (unused)
p80211 18456 0 [prism2_plx]
uhci 24496 0 (unused)
usbcore 58400 1 [uhci]
8139too 15240 0
mii 2304 0 [8139too]
crc32 2880 0 [8139too]
pcmcia_core 35104 0
ide-scsi 9424 0
agpgart 39576 0 (unused)

OK. Prism2 is loaded. Look at the output of ifconfig (as root) and see if it lists a device called wlan0. If it does, try this:

dhcpcd wlan0 (as root)

if you get no error msg, try using the net.

when i do ifconfig -a i see wlan0, but not when i do just ifconfig.
when i see wlan0 in ifconfig -a, the HWaddr is 00:00:00:00:00:00 so im not sure
if it is detecting the wireless card.

try this one as root

post results

if you see the card listed, try this
then restart pcmcia by doing this:
I'm not really certain why it isn't loading the modules. Are you certain you compiled and remapped the kernel according to the post in the slackware forum?