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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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Old 12-03-2003, 12:06 AM   #1
lonny
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Is it hard to install wireless pci card?


I am relativly new to linux and wanted to get my wireless card working. After some investigation I found that my card will work dwl-520 (based on the prism 2.5 chip). The problem is that they want me to download 3 different tar files hostap-driver-0.1.2.tar.gz , hostap-utils-0.1.2.tar.gz and hostapd-0.1.0.tar.gz. They also wanted me to download and install wireless tools for linux. I have untarred them fairly easily but am kinda stuck on how to install them. Also I am running Mandrake 9.2
 
Old 12-03-2003, 12:14 AM   #2
burnpile
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When you say they I assume you mean the manufacturer?

Installing a supported wifi card isn't that hard, you just have to do the steps in the correct order. Which means first you need to make sure everything else works. Reconfiguring kernel modules and the like can wreck wireless tools, so set up the box the way you like it first.

Once that's done, whomever is offering you the tech support should be able to give you specific instructions on how to install the drivers and tools.

And remember, google is your friend

Lots of us are here to help you out, just post any questions you have.

Good luck
 
Old 12-03-2003, 12:36 AM   #3
lonny
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Yeah its not supported by dlink. Someone has created drivers for it though.
 
Old 12-03-2003, 03:01 AM   #4
bart59
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Hello
actually I would like to install my DLink dwl 650 card on linux mandrake 9.2.
where did you find your driver and procedure to install a dlink wifi card?

Bart
 
Old 12-03-2003, 03:12 AM   #5
salarzae
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How about Intel Centrino's WiFi card, no drivers from Intel.... any other drivers can help?
 
Old 12-03-2003, 09:50 AM   #6
lonny
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Bart check the -----------News: A short FAQ about a lot of recent devices that have been a nuisance.---------------- link at the top of the page. Im pretty sure they list your card. Mine is a dwl-520 which has a prism 2.5 chip in it. Thats about as far as I have got. Let me know if you have any Luck.
 
Old 12-03-2003, 11:18 AM   #7
burnpile
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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/questi...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!
 
Old 12-03-2003, 01:35 PM   #8
xodustrance
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Well there is a little more to it than that.. First, find out what chipset the wireless is. Atmel or prism. Once you know that, then you know how to build the driver. The driver will ask you a slew of quiestions, build all? Definetly n, build usb drivers, build rfma driver, etc. You need to build the application that comes with the driver. Its called "lvnet" - Thats what you configure you wifi with... After youve build and installed the drivers, reboot, check to see if its loaded the driver. Open a console type "ifconfig" (no quotes) and see if eth0 yourchipsethere (ex ATMEL RFMD or PRISM) is listed. If you have another net card installed it may be eth1. If it is, type "lvnet"(again no quotes) and run the utitly to connect to your router, setup WEP, etc. Once done, then install in your network manager. Your gateway will need to be the ip address of your router. Mine is 10.10.10.1 - Most usually are 192.168.1.1 - Once installed through your network manager (in kde or whichever gui) bam... your done.
 
Old 12-03-2003, 03:13 PM   #9
burnpile
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Quote:
Originally posted by xodustrance
Well there is a little more to it than that..
There is?

Quote:
First, find out what chipset the wireless is. Atmel or prism. Once you know that, then you know how to build the driver. The driver will ask you a slew of quiestions, build all? Definetly n, build usb drivers, build rfma driver, etc.
you actually need to know what chipset before you even download the drivers.
build all defiantly yes. you use the configure script to specify driver settings, then the build all command to build the scripts and drivers you specified during the configuration.

Quote:

You need to build the application that comes with the driver. Its called "lvnet" - Thats what you configure you wifi with... After youve build and installed the drivers, reboot, check to see if its loaded the driver. Open a console type "ifconfig" (no quotes) and see if eth0 yourchipsethere (ex ATMEL RFMD or PRISM) is listed. If you have another net card installed it may be eth1. If it is, type "lvnet"(again no quotes) and run the utitly to connect to your router, setup WEP, etc.
wlan-ng drivers don't build lvnet
your wifi card will be called wlan0
but you had the ifconfig command right.

Quote:

Once done, then install in your network manager. Your gateway will need to be the ip address of your router. Mine is 10.10.10.1 - Most usually are 192.168.1.1 - Once installed through your network manager (in kde or whichever gui) bam... your done.
Actually you
edit the /etc/pcmcia/networtk.opts file
/etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia restart
dhcpcd wlan0
and it connects.

Plainly stated at the top of my post were specifics on what this works with and what it doesn't.

here's your sign.
 
  


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