ive got an 802.11b belkin wifi card, which i know for a fact works in linux. it uses the atmel chipset, and its had kernel support since kernel 2.4.21 (mandrake 9.1 i believe). suse plugger detecs it and even shows the card name, chipset, and model number and stuff, but it says its not configured. ok, so i click on the configure button and it opens up yast network config center and it doesnt show my card. so i go through the motions and set up a wifi card setup, and it still doesnt show my card showing up as eth1 or something, and i cant use the internet wirelessly. whats the deal?

If you go to YaST, and click on "Online Update", one of the updates offered is for Amtel Wireless Chipset Firmware. If you haven't alsready done so, check off that update and have YaST install it. I think it will solve your problem.

i'd do that update thing every week or when needed, but the thing is, im worried it will need to download like 500 MB of updates, and im already using up 4GB of space for suse and other dependencies programs need. anyway, as long as it doesnt take up 500 mb each update, ill do it. ill do it this once, ill post back later.

---edit---
downloaded just the atmel firmware. was it supposed to install the firmware to my wifi card? nothing really happened, it just downlaoded the file and yast exited like normal. when i run the yast netowrk config tool again, i still see no change, i cant configure my wifi card still. do i need to reboot? i cant reboot now, so i need a reply to this question. (im rendering an animation and i cant reboot, rendering is taking forever and i shouldnt stop it)

Well, i have only one other idea, when you're configuring your wi-fi card, are you telling YaST to look for DHCP, for your internet address? If not, do it. DHCP automatically finds your address so you can connect. When you do that, also make sure your ethernet cable is disconnected, so it's forced to look for DHCP through your wireless card. If that doesn't work, I guess your stuck with the cable, I am. I have a (please don't laugh) Microsoft wireless network, but of course it won't work wirelessly. So, if misery loves company, you've got some.

finally tried that suggestion, it didnt work. could it be because my router hasnt been "configured" yet? it came with a cd, but whenver i put the cd in to setup the WEP and password stuff, it couldnt install, yet Netstumbler in windows detects the wireless router and everything. but even in windows it doesnt work with wireless internet.

Well, I'm guessing a bit here, but I know Suse only recently gave the ability to set WEP with their 9.2 release, so you might want to try turning WEP off and run in the clear and then try the DHCP idea again. Turning WEP off might also help with getting wireless to work in Windows too. Make sure you are entering the correct network name and workgroup name, especially if each one is different. As far as whether the base station (AKA router) has been configured yet, that has to be done in Windows first. Configure the base station first, then the wireless adapter at the other end. After that, then try setting it up in Suse/Linux as well. Also, usually you have to run the same cd disk to configure both the base station and the wireless adapter. At some point in the installation process, the cd should ask you if you're configuring a base station or a wireless adapter. That disk will not run in Suse in all likelyhood. If you want to try it in Suse, go to YaST and go to the bottom where you see Misc. Click on that and you'll see "Load Vendor Driver CD". Click on that, load your CD and see what happens (probably nothing, but it's worth a try). Good luck!

how do i use the windows drivers? they're on a cd, and i read ndiswrapper will/should work.

so far, not even 9.2 live cd will make the card work.

Based on what you said about Suse 9.2 not finding the wireless drivers, I think you may just be out of luck doing Suse wirelessly. There are nearly as many wireless adapters that Suse supports as those it doesn't support. It sounds like your just one of the many that it doesn't support. That means unfortunately, you need a wired connection to use Suse. Suse does continue to add more support for more wireless connections, maybe yours will be added....maybe not, you'll just have to wait and see.

well, i can build the atmel drivers from source and compile them myself, so i think that's the path im going to have to take. installing drivers isnt a hard thing to do, for some reason, i have trouble (on any distro) getting it to show up in "ifconfig" as eth1 or something.

i got it detected and showing up as atml0 in iwconfig and ifconfig, and i see wireless activity in kwifi, but as soon as i unplug my ehternet cable, i cant get online. could it be comething not configured with my router?

kwifi shows signal strength and link quality and stuff, but no internet, so my question is: what's up? is it a router configuration issue?

Try unplugging your base station for about 30 seconds, then plug it back in, that will reset the base station. Or if your using 64 or 128 bit wep, make sure the computer at the wireless end has the wep key (whatever the key is you may have created). If you don't know it, then kill wep and run in the clear (with no wep). Try checking the wep setting first, if that checks out, then reset the base station.

that's just it, i didnt set up the router with anything, no WEP key or anything. basically i just pulled it form the box, plugged it in, and its working by defaults.

i cant pull the plug just now because people are using the network for important work, so ill try later. but post back anyway on the WEP stuff, and let me know any more info about it.

WEP shouldn't be a problem, I'm using an internal Athros super G on a Toshiba Satillite with WEP running suse 9.1 pro.

To answer your last question, as one only 6 months into Linux usage the answer is simple. Linux unfortunately has no standard for installing downloaded software and many apps. that require a LOT of research to find all of the dependencies for them. I look at it this way, I love Linux, I know it will eventually send Microsoft crying into the woods with its tail tucked nervously underneath it, but it has got to get its act together to do that. Windows right now is like driving a minivan with an automatic transmission, Mac is like a slick sports car with a 6 speed stick shift and Linux is like a 10 ton Mack Truck, with 4 gear shifts! It's got to get easier before it takes off, or it won't.

i couldnt get wifi internet in windows either, so is it a WEP problem?

like i said, i havent configured anything on the linksys router.