As I mentioned in my title, I'm a huge n00b when it comes to Linux, and I was referred to Fedora Core 6 as a good 'newbie-friendly version' by a network admin friend of mine (Who mysteriously goes offline or silent when I ask her for help. Fie on her!)

At any rate..

I have FC6 installed on my Acer Aspire 3620 (Which I purchased entirely for its cheapness and portability for putting Fedora Core on, since my spare room full of old computers apparently wasn't good enough... ) which has built-in Wireless, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and 56k modem.

I can get online perfectly fine with the ethernet connection. Wireless, even with an unsecure wireless router a foot from it it can't find an active connection to connect to, because apparently it can't activate the wireless device, and I can't seem to find the firmware for it (It has a switch on the front of the laptop to toggle both Bluetooth and Wireless, two switches) and I've never tried the Bluetooth connection.

My biggest irritation at the moment, however, is right now I'm visiting family and can't even get the dialup connection to work.

The only thing that happens when I try to activate it in the Network Configuration window is I get an "error 2", but naturally it's impossible to figure out exactly what that error is when you don't know what you're looking for...

Anyhow, I suppose my issues are A) How do I locate the right firmware to run my wireless card? (I don't necessarily need someone to find it for me, just a better idea of where to look. I've been Googling to no avail) B) What might be wrong with the dialup that it only throws back an error?


Then the "+ Devices" bit is probably simple - Is there anywhere that I can easily look up everything mounted on the system? Not just what HD, but also what network hardware, DVD drive, etc., and what the mounting points are?


Thanks in advance guys.

(And as a side note, I see a lot of references to the lspci command.. I just get a command not found when I try running it. Am I supposed to be in a specific directory when I run it? I'm reeeeeeeeally green.)

Oops It's an Aspire 3620 (3624WXCi officially, but none of the stats I find on it are what's actually IN it, lol)

And as long as I'm at it... I tried to install the GStreamer MP3 plugin but only ended up with a long list of errors trying to run the make install. Is there any 'better' mp3 software available that runs on FC6? I know it's an 'inferior' filetype, but I have a 10GB+ collection of MP3s I'd rather not convert

You shouldn't really reply to yourself. Its better to edit your original post and add any extra info. If you reply to yourself, the thread is removed from the zero reply list because the forum assumes you have had a response and it will not bump it for you. Anyone looking to help people with unanswered threads will not see yours.

Anyway to find out what wireless chip you have, start a terminal and enter
Don't enter the "$", its just there to represent a normal user prompt. As for mp3, take a look at this article.

Sorry, bad habit I got into years ago that I can't quite break.

"Brodcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11 Wireless Lan Controller (Rev 82)" is what I get for the wireless card.

"AC97 Soft Data Fax Modem with SmartCP" comes up on my fiancee's XP laptop (Which is the exact same model as mine) which is a soft/winmodem. I really don't want to spend $ on a driver for it, so I think I'll just skip on the dialup.

Which leaves me at the issue of the wireless, which I can't actually test until I'm back at my apartment anyhow, so there's no real use troubleshooting it.

Thanks for your help You've helped more than you know

lets just fix one problem on this thread, with that said we will do the wireless. For your other issues make new threads, but only after we solve this one. As you will probably get a bad, BAD headache

as root, open up a console window and type
this will keep your computer from loading the linux native driver (don't worry you can use the windows one)

read this post it is one in progress. after you follow the steps listed there repost here with your results.

Er, hey guys, sorry for asking for help and disappearing. I got pretty frustrated at my laptop and it didn't work the first time so I sort of packed it up and haven't looked at it since, aside from taking notes in class once or twice with it..

I'm working on a problem with my Windows box right now, but once I'm done with that I'm going to tackle the laptop again and hopefully get it working. Fortunately we have about.. hm, seven computers or so in the house, or I'd be tearing out my hair with two computers essentially down, when it comes to being fully usable

OH! And since then I HAVE gotten MP3 compatibility working not only on my laptop, but a PC I built for my grandma as well (I couldn't justify spending the $100 to get a Windows license when all she needs it for is browsing the internet and the occasional word processing. Hell, the printer she had me buy that wouldn't work with her old WinME box absolutely LOVES Ubuntu. 100% compatibility there. Aside from the networking issue I'm too lazy to properly get past, I'm loving Ubuntu. I even got Ultima Online running in it beautifully, via WINE)

Okay, I finally got it working ^_^

If only my Windows installation wasn't currently forked right now on my desktop... I'm in C&C3 withdrawal pangs.