Noob: run IPW2100 on Mandriva boot
 

Hello!

I'm sure this has an obvious answer but it completely eludes me. I've just installed Mandriva and got my wireless card working with the IPW drivers. The problem occurs on boot - if I start the computer then nothing (network-wise) works until I type the following into the command prompt:

modprobe ipw2100

After that it all kicks in and I can use my wireless internet connection. :scratch:

How can I get these drivers to load on startup? As I said at the start, probably dead easy but I'm a noob! :D

Thanks!

Jamie. ;)

If you go into your Mandriva Control Center -> Hardware -> eth0 (or eth1, whichever the wireless is) and configure it, you can set the option to "ALWAYS ON DURING STARTUP", or CONNECT ON STARTUP, or something like that. Try doing that.

See if that works.

Hi Micro420!

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the problem - eth2 starts up fine when Mandriva boots, and I can ifdown and ifup absolutely fine without errors. The problem is, when I type ifconfig or iwconfig (before I've used modprobe to load the ipw2100 drivers) it thinks its a standard ethernet connection, not wireless. Only once I've typed "modprobe ipw2100" does it realise that its a wireless network device and connect.

Weird, huh?! Anyway - all I really need I think is to persuade Mandriva to load up those drivers on startup. But I've no idea how... :(

Thanks! :)

Jamie

login. Open a terminal window.

Type

su -

enter the root password. You should now see "#" at the beginning of the line. This indicates you are logged in as root. Now get a pen and paper. Make a note of every action that you enter as root. Please do not enter anything without writing it down. With notes, you can correct any errors you make.

Type

cd /etc/rc.d

less rc.local

You should now see all of the entries in the file rc.local. Next type

v

Typing "v" will put the file into edit mode using vi. BE CAREFUL! GO TO THE END OF THE FILE. type

modprobe ipw2100

then type

:wq

then type

q

Then click to restart your system. When the system restarts, the wireless should be working.

Hi wpennington!

Superb - thank you. I spent ages looking around the rc.d folder and trying to work out what I was going to do with the rc5.d folder! I didn't even know rc.local existed.

It solved the problem and is really useful to know - thanks again! :D

Jamie.