Gang:

I just bought a wireless card (Belkin F5D7000) and I can't seem to get SuSE 9.0 to recognize it. Honestly I have no clue where to even start to get it to work. Any suggestions will be helpful. I would also like to admit that you will need to hold my hand a bit as the card is in the machine and that is about it.

Cheers

SuSE 9.0
Linux Kernal 2.4.21-215
KDE 3.3 (beta)

Thanx in advance

The first thing is to figure out what chipset that card is using. From a little googling I suspect it is another "fine" product of the Broadcom corporation, but lets start by posting the output of lspci.

Tis Broadcom chipset (is that bad?); what the heck is lspci?


Cheers

The broadcom chipset is fine, its the company that is a pain in the patootie for Linux users. They won't write a linux driver and they won't release enough info for someone else to do it, hence the need for programs like ndiswrapper.

lspci is a command that you enter in at the prompt in your favorite console. It basically lists all the hardware that is present on the pci bus. If you haven't gotten familiar with the using the console, well, you are about too. Don't worry, once you get used to it you'll have a hard time figuring out how you lived without it.

Oh i use the console, love it, reminds me of DOS back in the day...I figured out what lspci was after some brain power (wasn't working cuz I wasn't consoling as root). anyways here is the info you asked for:

02:07.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94306 802.11g (rev 02)

I do love the manual nature of Linux, it brings the hobby aspect back to computing.

Cheers

OK, that is the same chipset I've got. Either linuxant or ndiswrapper should get you going. I use ndiswrapper and haven't had any problems, but I know that isn't a universal opinion. The INSTALL file for ndiswrapper is actually pretty clear and if you follow it, it should work. That said, the 0.8 version has given people some difficulty so if that doesn't work try dropping back to 0.7. Or try the 0.9 pre release if you are feeling brave.

I hate to say this, but it sounds like we have another Slacker in the making.....

Not quite there yet but you are probably right, give me more knowledge and free time and you will probably be proven correct. I will take your suggestions and get back to you. Thank you for all your help.

Cheers.