Hello everyone, I am brand new to linux, I actually just installed it today, and I am dual-booting with MS Windows XP pro. Anyways, I have a wireless adapter from linksys and it doesn't work with linux. I have no idea what to do, I have searched the internet and read a whole bunch of stuff but it is all way to confusing and i have no clue what it means (i'll say again that i'm brand new to linux). If anyone has any idea what to do, please help me. And you'll need to be really specific because i have no clue whats going on in linux...for now i'll just have to use windows for the internet. Oh by the way I am using Simply MEPIS. If i need to get the internet on linux, i can...i just have to haul my computer all the way downstairs and hook it up with a cord. Thank you so much for any help anyone has.

I'm gonna start off by mentioning -- wireless network adapters in Linux have never been particularly easy.
Start off by plugging the adapter in while the machine is on, wait a minute or so, and type dmesg to a command line. See the last few lines to check if it's recognised the device or not.
If it just says something along the lines of usb 3-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4, then it doesn't have a driver for it and you'll have to get one [get to that later].
Alternatively, you can plug it in and try typing [again, after a minute] iwconfig (note you have to log in as root to do that) and it'll tell you all the network devices it finds. Mine says:
Also, what kernel is MEPIS using? (type uname -r to find out)

You have to tell us the exact model of your wireless card.

my model is listed in the subject, its Linksys WUSB54GC.
Hopefully I am supposed to be typing this stuff in Konsole, beacause that is where i am doing it. Anyways, when i type dmesg, a whole bucn of stuff comes up and i don't see anything about a wireless device. I will set up my linux with ethernet so I can copy and paste what it does say. I will also try iwconfig. My kernal is 2.6.15-1-586tsc

okay i do see something about a wireless device when i type dmesg: This is what i get:

usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

however, when i log in as root and type iwconfig, this is what i get:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Also, I dono if this might help anyone who is trying to help me. But if you can make sense of http://www.passivemode.net/updates/2...4gc-linux.html I think it might help. I sure don't know what it's talking about.

In short, you need to download and compile a driver for the device. You should be able to get away with the kernel you have, since it's pretty up to date.
Download the driver from here and put it in a folder somewhere (like ~/Network where ~ is your home dir of course).
Then untar it (with tar xfz rt73_linux_sta_drv1.0.3.0.tar.gz) and it should give you a bunch of files (possibly in a further subdirectory).
Once in that folder, you might be able to get away with just typing make, and it'll compile. Try it, and if it throws errors, edit the files as specified on that site under the tar -xvzf RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.3.0.tar.gz line.
Once you can get it to compile, do the following (as per the site):
I assume the folder in /lib/modules is called 2.6.15-1-586tsc anyway. You might need to change that slightly, depending on what MEPIS called it.
If that works, iwconfig should give you a further interface.

Let me know how it goes.

Ok, Here's what I've done. I downloaded the driver file, and saved it to /home/thomas/network/. I successfully untared it and went into the untared directory and into the modules file. I then ran the make command and a whole bunch of stuff came up and at the end it said:

make: *** [rtmp_main.o] Error 1

I'm guessing that this means that it didn't work. However I'm not sure. If it did work, what dir would i hvae to go to to find rt73.ko?

As I am still guessing it didn't work, I'm going to go to that site and edit the files as specified on that site under the tar -xvzf RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.3.0.tar.gz line.

Errors generally mean things didn't work... in fact they always mean things didn't work.
Can't say why without knowing any more about the error itself, but editing the files as described is the best bet.

Okay, i successfully edited the file, and saved it, but when i went to "make" , it said that a directory couldn't be found. I don't really undertand this because it worked before i edited the files (but it had an error) But after I edit them, it has problems, even though the editing i did had nothing to do with any directories or anything. I'm so confused. Also, what about the stuff at the top of that site that I never did...could that have anything to do with it:

# apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.8 kernel-headers-2.6.8-2-386 unzip gcc-3.4 gcc make wireless-tools
# cd /usr/src
# tar -xvjf kernel-source-2.6.8.tar.bz2
# mv kernel-source-2.6.8 linux-2.6.8

***EDITED***Okay, I know why i got the error....I am supposed to type the command "cp Makefile.6 Makefile" and it supposed to execute the Makefile.6 file. WHen i looked at the Makefile.6 file, it is supposed to make the direcotyr that cannot be found durring installation (plus a lot of other stuff). But when i type the command, nothing happens. Is there some other way to execute the Makefile.6 that might be different then Debian.

Without knowing what the error (before you edited) was, it's hard to say.
Those lines at the top of the page are for debian, telling it to download the kernel headers package which it needs to compile. I don't know offhand whether MEPIS has them or not -- I don't use it myself. They did come pre-installed on Slackware (what I use) though.
As for editing the file, I can't say what broke without seeing the error.

Mepis comes with ndiswrapper installed. You just need to add the windows driver for your card to it.

Can you post the output of 'lsusb' after plugging in the device? It will be more specific about the exact chipset in use.

I looked on the ndiswrapper site and the driver for this particular adapter isn't supported.

I will try the Isusb command tommarow and post it

cp is a copy command.. all it does is copy Makefile.6 to Makefile, which is what's executed when you type make.
So you run the cp command to copy Makefile.6 to Makefile, and don't edit either of them according to that site.
You then open Module/rtmp_def.h [from the directory you untarred the driver into] and edit as specified.
As for Matir's thing, it's lsusb not Isusb (a lower-case L), and it'll give you an output of all the USB devices plugged in to your system, and some info about them.

Edit: Just for clarification, where that site has /usr/src, you have /home/thomas/network since that's where you untarred to.

Okay, this still isn't solving my problem...how come when i copy Makefile.6 to Makefile, it can't find a directory all of a sudden.