I am fairly new to Linux, so take it easy on me.
I recently installed SuSE 9.1 on my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop. I configured it to dual boot with windows XP without any problems (w00t!). My problems arose when I tried to get SuSE to recongize my linksys WPC54G PCMCIA wireless card. I don't even know if SuSE knows the card is there. When I try to get on the internet or my wireless network, SuSE tries to use my laptop's integrated Ethernet card. I'm somewhat lost, and would appreciate any help in getting this set up right.

Also, my wireless network uses WPA encryption. Does SuSE support this? Can I at least download something to make it work?

Like I said, I'm a newbie, been on Linux only 24 hours now. I'd appreciate some help, I'd hate to have to boot up into windows every time I want to use the internet. Thanks

Do you know what chipset this card uses? If not, check the output of lspci and post it if your not sure what you are seeing.

The WPA could be a problem. I'm not sure how widespread support is for WPA yet.

Im having the same problem but I've found out that I have to use "ndiswrapper" to 'wrap' existing drivers for that broadcom chipset for windows. My Thread:http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=211057
More about "ndiswrapper" : http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys. I've used linuxant to wrap the windows drivers for my wireless card. As it turns out, it has a broadcom chipset, and apparently those aren't supported. After I did that, the system recongizes the wireless card as wlan0. According to linuxant.com, I should also be able to get WPA support by installing a wpa supplicant. I'm having a bit of difficulty getting this to work. Has anyone else done this and gotten it to work?

You may want to spend some quality time at the ndiswrapper site. They were at least considering WPA support, and it may exist in the CVS versions or maybe even in the 0.9-pre release (it is kind of hard to tell). Since ndiswrapper and linuxant are rough equivalents, the fact that your card works with linuxant at least holds out some hope that ndiswrapper could work.

I am using NDISwrapper with WMP54GS in Suse 9.1

everything is configured perfectly with ifconfig & iwconfig.
I am using 64 bit encription but I entered the key using iwconfig so that should be ok too.

But I dont know much about what a Access point is/does. Now i get weird results, could anyone tell me what they mean? here's the results I get:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

root > iwlist bitrate
4 available bit-rates:
1MB/s, 2MB/s, 5.5 Mb/s, 11 MB/s , Current Bit Rate = 125 MB/s
root > iwlist encryption
2 Key sizes: 40, 104 bits
4 Key available:
{1} : 1111-1111-11 (40 bits), {2} : 1111-1111-11 (40 bits), {3} : 1111-1111-11 (40 bits),
{4} : 1111-1111-11 (40 bits) , Current Transmit Key {0}, Security mode : restricted

root > iwlist accesspoints
wlan0 - Interface doesn't have a list of Peers/Access-Points.

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My hardware information:
NIC-WMP54GS - Wireless-G PCI Adapter with SpeedBooster
Router-WRT54GS - Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster v1.0

OS - Suse 9.1
Long live the penguin


xSystemX69

xsystem,
Don't double post and particularly don't double post and hijack two threads at the same time. If you have a question, start a new thread.

I've spent some time looking at the NDISwrapper website like you guys suggested. Apparently both NDISwrapper and Linuxant both use wpa_supplicant for their wpa encryption. I've downloaded the supplicant from Linuxant's website, and have managed to compile it successfully. However, I'm somewhat confused about what to do from here. How do I make Linuxant and this new program work together? When I try to run the compiled supplicant program, nothing happens. Has anyone out there managed to get the wpa encryption to work with linuxant, and what if so, how did you do it? Thanks

I've never used WPA but from the README it sounds like you have to set up a config file and then run wpa_supplicant in the background as a daemon. Sorry I can't offer more advice, but the README looks to be at lease somewhat comprehensible.

So, I have to make a config file and run the program in the background? So what will the config file include? Sorry, I'm really new at this. . . See, I'm somewhat confused because I already have a short config file set up, but when I try to run the program, nothing happens. And I still can't connect to my network. Any ideas why the program doesn't do anything when I try to run it? I'm on my windows box right now so I can't post a copy of the config file that I used, but I'd really appreciate it if someone could guide me through what the config file should look like? Thanks

If I were in your shoes I would start a new thread on using wpa_supplicant since it really is a different question from the thread title. Like I said, I haven't used it so the only thing I can do is point to the examples in the README file. A new thread on using WPA may attract the attention of someone who is using it.

So, I've managed to get the wpa supplicant working. Took a bit of command-line magic, but nothing to hard. Brings me back to the DOS days. Anyways, I manage to get an IP address from the router, but I'm still having difficulty getting on the internet. Any ideas why I'd be able to ping other comps on my network, but not the internet? Thanks

Are you trying to ping by name or IP address on the internet? For example if ping www.linuxquestions.org fails but ping 64.179.4.149 works, then you need to check your /etc/resolve.conf and make sure that your ISP's DNS servers are listed there.

The other thing to check would be the output of route -n and make sure that the gateway entry is your router's IP address. If you are getting an IP by dhcp, I doubt this is the problem though.

I guess my last guess would be that your firewall is getting in the way. If you take it down and can then access the internet, that would be a big clue.

Well, good news. I finally got everything working! I am typing this post using Linux and the wireless connection. Its a beautiful thing. Hangdog, you were right, I updated my /etc/resolve.conf files and everything works like a charm. Thanks for all your help. .

Excellent! You know, you're one of the first people I've come across who is successfully using WPA. If you've got the time, it might be worth writing up your experience in a post. I'm guessing this is going to be a big question in the near future. You might even submit it to the Tutorials section here so it would have a more permanent presence.