I have a Sony Vaio PCG-GRT100 with a built in wireless card that should work under Linux. It is an LAN Express/Ambit Microsystems 802.11 adapter, and I run a dual boot Suse 9.2/WinXPpro setup. Everything or course werks great under Windows, but when I boot into Linux I get into trouble, mostly because I am new to it and the learning curve has been harsh. The Suse window gui makes it alot easier, but still... I managed to get the card configured, I think, but what do I do next, I mean how do I connect to a hotspot when I am around town? Are there some commands which I need to learn here? Also, I went out and bought another card, PCMCIA because it has an external link for an antenna and that is something that I needed, again, great under Windows, but this time I can't even get it to power under Linux, and this time Linux configured itself correctly too! It found the card wen I plugged it in, identified it correctly as far as I can tell, but no power indication on the card, and no connection for sure! How can I manually get the card connected or powered, and make sure that the right driver is being used, as I heard that the wrong one can burn out the card(wrong power pin?)

Well to get started could you post
ifconfig -a
and
iwconfig
also what kind of PCMCIA card

Here are the results of both commands and then the other wifi cards model and a bit of info.

ifconfig -a :
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:00:46:A8:A4:42
inet6 addr: fe80::a00:46ff:fea8:a442/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0b) TX bytes:2360 (2.3Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x2000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3944 (3.8Kb) TX bytes:3944 (3.8Kb)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NO ARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0b) TX bytes:0 (0.0b)

wifi0Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr: 00-02-8A-94-3D-2E-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0b) TX bytes:3040 (2.9Kb)
Interrupt:10 Memory:e084c000-e084d000

wlan0Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:8A:94:3D:2E
inet6 addr:fe80::202:8aff:fe94:3d2e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0b) TX bytes:3040 (2.9Kb)
Interrupt:10 Memory:e084c000-e084d000

iwconfig results:
lo no wireless extensions

eth0 no wireless extensions

wifi0IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"linux" Nickname:"linksys"
Mode:Managed AccessPoint:44:44:44:44:44:44 Bit Rate:2Mb/s
Sensitivity =1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managmentff
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=-73dBm Noise level=-73dBm
RX invalid nwid:0 RX invalid crypt:112 RX invalid frag:0
TX excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:2008 Missed beacon:0

wlan0IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"linux" Nickname:"linksys"
Mode:Managed AccessPoint:44:44:44:44:44:44 Bit Rate:2mb/s
Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managmentff
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=-73dBm Noise level=-73dBm
RX invalid nwid:0 RX invalid crypt:112 RX invalid frag:0
TX excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:2008 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions

Thats all folks. The above info was generated using the internal 802.11b adapter. The PCMCIA adapter is a Buffalo AirStation model#WLI-CB-G54S and Linux reads and configures it as a Melco BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless Lan Controller. I still can't even get the power LED on the thing to come on though, so I don't know what to do next to fix the problem here, let alone get a browser up and running if it was werking right anyways!!! I need some serious help here, and quick! Thanks for quick responses all...

hi there

I'm a linux newbie, not an expert, but it seems to me that your wireless card is not being correctly recognised and used. Linux has incorrectly identified it and can't 'drive it'. I would suggest that you use your windows drivers along with ndiswrapper to get it working correctly. Go to this site:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

and spend some time reading through the documentation.

I have managed to get two different wireless cards working with Linux, but i needed ndiswrapper both times.

The PCMCIA card is a broadcom so I would use your built in wireless.
Looks like you have a prism card and that will work.
post lsmod and lspci just to make sure then read the part about configure here;
ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README

Is there something in particluar you are seeking in these commands that I can pull from the blocks, because these are pretty long and I would have to write out by hand as am in Windows and cannot access Linux directories, not to mention I haven't figured out a way to paste info to this forum anyways, so typing it is I guess. So, you say that the PCMCIA card is Broadcom chipset, is there no drivers or support for these chips? Or is it just alot harder to get up and running using these? I can still take it back and try to get something else, as I really do need a card that has the ability to connect an external antenna. Anyways, I have the results of both commands here in front of me, on paper now, so if you can let me know what you are looking for in these I can transfer whatever the results, if you really do need the whole listing then I will write it out, I just am not a quick typer, at all.

if you have the windows drivers from a cd or if you can find them online try using ndiswrapper to set up your device...
first move the windows drivers (most important is the .inf file but be sure to get all of them) to an easily accessable folder (like /home)
then open up a console and go into that folder as root and type 'ndiswrapper -i driver.inf' (where driver.inf is the name of the .inf file you got from the cd)
after installing the driver type 'ndiswrapper -l' to see if the driver worked, it should say something like 'driver present, hardware present' if it worked... if it does then type 'ndiswrapper -m' and finally modprobe ndiswrapper
that should give your hardware support under linux and turn on at startup!

Just to see if linux-wlan-ng is loaded lsmod and to make sure your card says prism.
The broadcom will work with ndiswrapper but you are better off with a card that is based on the prism(linux-wlan-ng) atheros or orinico(native) as they will work with wep etc.here is some here;
http://stores.ebay.com/DataAlliance_...Q3amesstQQtZkm
also the D-Link DWL-G520 works good it uses the atheros(mad-wifi)
http://madwifi.org/

Ok, I am fairly sure based upon what you have stated that the built in adapter should work just fine for now, I am going to return the PCMCIA card unless I know for sure that it can work(I am still am bit confused as to why it isn't, as Linuc seems to have recognised the card, it just sin't doing anything with it?) Lets say that the adapter is good to go, what should I do next, I mean, how do I go about connecting the laptop to a local AccessPoint. A strong one for me is called "linksys" and it is open, so how do I get connected with this AP, and then how do I open a web browser? Do the browsers need to be configured with the adapter before they will werk together? This can get to be a headache pretty quickly.

Hey, at least your internal is working fine...some ppl don't even have that ;-)

To scan for local access points

To connect to an access point:
Though from iwconfig output above, it appears that this is already being done for you. You didn't forget to run dhcpd, did you? (assuming, that's how you are getting your IP from the AP)

Ok. sounds like we are getting somewhere. What is this dchp you talk about, I recall setting the raiobutton to dhcp when configuring the card, is there more involved with this than what I have done? Does this have something to do with the configuration of the browser? I hav e tried all the commands that you gave already but for the dhcp command, what does this accomplish? Before when I tried these commands, all I would get whenb I tried to open a browser was an error saying that the host could not be reached or something like that. I wonder what I am missing here?

You need to follow the readme, look at Configuring:
ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README

man dhcpcd

:-)

Of course I'm making the assumption that this is manner the access point you're connecting to distributes it's IP's.

Ok, I know this may be repetative, but I still am having problems, I have read the Readme, wlan how-to,(I admitt I have a problem retaining info sometimes, but..)and I went through the config and settled everything that way it should be, I think. I can ping the ESSID that I am shooting for(I live in the city, don't have a line myself and haven't had to pay for internet for a long while now, but am also looking to improve my connection, hence the external adapter..) as there are a few open hotspots around I can get. I still cannot seem to connect to any web sites after opening any of the two browsers supplied with Suse. MozillaFireFox flashes a window stating "www.google.com could not be found please check name and try again". Konquerer brings up "unknown host, no user called www.google.com. malformed url". When I check out the Klinternet helper tool, under the connection check I get the error messages- "Default Route-Invalid default route: cannot read '/proc/net/route':success", "Name Server-Name server failure: no name server found in '/etc/resolu.conf'. Ok, so I didn't end up changing the config through the command line after all, I just used the YAST modules and changed as much of that as made sense, the dhcp radio button was left at "auto", so is everything taken care of in terms of handling IP's and that? Will the Klinternet utility handle all of the connnection aspects of the network rather than using the command line? I honestly never noticed it there until tonight! I guess one other question is- is there some other commands or configuration I am missing between the "iwconfig wlan0 essid linksys" command and opening the broswer to surf? This is exactly where I am stuck right now, and the more man pages I try to consume the more frusterated I seem to get. Me thinks I am in too deep perhaps...

did you set your DNS (domain name servers)? DNS translates things like www.google.com into the right ip address. some good dns servers are 4.2.2.2 or 4.2.2.3