Mandrake 9.1 and Wireless LAN Card

Hello, I am a linux newb, and I won't try to pretend I'm not.

I just installed the latest stable Mandrake 9.1 on my Gateway Solo 9550 laptop. Everything works fantastic, except for my wireless LAN card.

Now I know it can work with linux, because like a retard, I tried installing v9.2 Mandrake first, not realizing it was not a stable release, anyway, the wireless card worked perfect with the 9.2, I believe it used the orinoco driver for prismII based cards, but not positive about that.

It's a Hawking Technologies WE110P PCMCIA LAN card. Now hawking tech does have a driver for it, and it appears the card is one of the prismII based cards. But their driver is supposed to have a HOWTO file, but I can't find one, the driver location is http://www.hawkingtech.com/wirelessdownload.php.

When I boot my computer with the card in the slot, it says "unsupported card in socket 1".

If someone can help me install the linux driver from Hawking Tech, I'd appreciate it a bunch.

Thanks,
Robert

I'm assuming you tried to get this going with mandrake control center and the hardware tab, but it didn't work, if that's not the case try the GUI tool first.

If it doesn't work for you, try these steps:
1. If you're not logged in as root, exit kde/gnome or whatever window manager you're using with the "logout" item on the menu.
2. If this takes you to a text-mode console, type "logout", It will now ask you to login, type "root" and give the password, no characters will echo, so watch your fingers carefully, then type startx.
2.a If this takes you to a login screen, login as root
3.when you get to the warning about running as root, respond to the effect that you know you are root and it's ok.
5. open a console from the menu, type "cardctl ident", you should get something like this back:
Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "Wireless Network CardBus PC Card", "Global", "", ""
manfid: 0x0097, 0x8402
6. leave the console there and open kedit or gedit from the menu and file/open /etc/pcmcia/config
7. If you tend to screw things up, before making any changes, use file/save as and save the file with a backup extension like "/etc/pcmcia/config.bak"
8. use edit/find and search for this: "# Wireless network adapters"
9. using one of the existing entries as a template, create a new entry for your card using the info returned from cardtl ident in the console window, the "text strings" aren't as important as getting the manfid line right.
10. the line beginning with "bind..." is the one that defines which driver will be used for your card, you can start with "bind orinoco_cs" and if that doesn't work, we'll try others.
11. double-check your work for correctness, typos will cause you to believe falsely that a particular "binding" didn't work then save the file making sure it's saved as /etc/pcmcia/config.
12. in the console window type "cardctl eject", remove your card, and then type "/etc/init.d/pcmcia restart"
13. plug your card back in and see if it acts any differently
14. open the mandrake control center and see if your card is listed, then configure it, if it's not listed or the config doesn't work, post back and we'll do it manually.

Right on, thank you very much akaBeaVis. That got the connection working great.

Now this popped up a *very* minor problem. When I pull the card out, it freezes the computer. Really, it's not that big of a problem, I'll definitely learn to deal with it until 9.2 is stable. But if anyone knows of something I can check, I'd be much appreciative. Or even if there was some sort of a shortcut I could put on my desktop that would stop the card so I could yank it out without crashing, I'd do that.

Again, thank you very much, this forum is the best!

Robert

just type "cardctl eject" in a console before pulling out the card, this is similar to using the tool in the windows "system tray" for the same purpose.

Okeydoke, if there's no other way, I'll deal with it for sure. I am wireless and free to roam about with a stable version of Linux, I am really happy now.

I just noticed with Version 9.2, I could yank the card in and out without any problem, but oh well.

Thanks again,
Robert

I don't have any personal experience with "cooker" versions (mandrake unstable) so I can't help you there, you could probably post a new question-thread in networking with mandrake 9.2 in it and see if any of the other quite knowledgeable people here bite on it. I'm glad to see you got it going.