i was wondering if anyone knows what type of wlan card is in the averatec 3200 notebook? it is not detected by suse 9.1 and i would appreciate any help with getting this card to work. thanx

/sbin/lspci

That'll tell us the chipset to start with, after that we can sort out what driver it uses... hopefully won't have to fall back on ndiswrapper.

Cheers,

Finegan

kerr@linux:~> /sbin/lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 3205
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
0000:00:09.0 Network controller: Unknown device 1814:0201 (rev 01)
0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller (rev 20)
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT8233/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. Intel 537 [AC97 Modem] (rev 80)
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 7205 (rev 01)

Its an RaLink card, they're a little annoying to get working, here's a how-to that looks moderately functional, don't worry about the lspci differences, you've got an older copy of lspci lib that hasn't translated the numbers right, hence the unknown device goo.

http://www.methods.co.nz/doc/ralink-2400.html

Cheers,

Finegan

i installed suse 9.2 and my card is actually the ralink rt2500 do u think this tutorial will still work?

Nope, the Ralink 2500 is a completely different monster then the 2400, I found that out last week. Take a look at:

http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

I got the Linux driver to compile cleanly for 2.4, didn't muck about much with the 2.6, and got some annoying hangs off of ndiswrapper and both the OEM windows driver and the new one from RaLink there.

If you get stuck, post back, I might be able to help you out getting it compiled.

Cheers,

Finegan

i got the card to be recognized..im not sure if it was with ndiswrapper or just the source install..because i did the source install and didnt get any results and then ndiswrapper and didnt get any results, but now it seems to be recognized when it wants to. Now i need to get it internet accessible. I need to configure the ip. I tried using dhclient but i get unrecognized command. Well heres what iwconfig gives me:
linux:/home/kerr # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:"linksys"
Mode:Auto Frequency=1 MHz Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level:-221 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth1 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

-any help is appreciated

i believe it is using the rt2500 driver because when i try to kill it it says it is in use. i will try to uninstall ndiswrapper and see if the card is still recognized.

I wasn't able to get this driver to work right under iwconfig, you want to take a look at the documentation, you can create a directory in /etc/ called

/etc/Wireless/RT2500STA/RT2500STA.dat

You have a sample of it on hand in the source directory:

Cheers,

Finegan