intel pro/wireless 2915abg minipci adapter ipw2200
 

Ok, I'm back with another problem. I'm trying to install fedora core 4 on my wifes fujitsu c series lifebook. It has a intel pro/wireless 2915 minipc adapter. The hardware browser sees both the lan nic and the wireless nic. The driver is ipw2200. In the network configuration, under hardware, the status is ok. This is in kde gui. I have no options to enable it. Am I going to have to use ndiswrapper for this or am I missing something? Almost forgot. It has a switch for turning the wireless off and on.
TIA

Have you installed the latest firmware for the wireless driver?

After posting this I saw the "related threads" box and read additional threads on this card. I have a firmware directory in /lib/ but it is empty. I typed ls -l /lib/firmware/bcm* and nothing came up. What does the * do? Does it mean wildcard?
How do I determine what firmware to download, where do I download it from and where do I download it to? Is it a onetime shot or will I need to redo it if I load another O.S.?
Also, my cardreader and sound doesn't work.
Looks like my wife and I have the 2 most dificult laptops for linux!

First off, 'bcm' would seem to indicate the Broadcomm driver, not the Intel driver. In order to get your Intel wireless to work correctly, you need two things. The driver and the firmware. The driver was included standard issue starting with the 2.6.14 Linux kernel and above. I'm not sure if FC4 is new enough to have that kernel. If you can upgrade your kernel to something at or above 2.6.14, that's one way to get the driver. If not, you'll have to download the driver and build it. Regardless, you'll have to download the firmware. The firmware gets put into /lib/firmware. You can get both items here ...

http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/

However, doing a Google search yielded this site ...

http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2-ipw2200.shtml

which addresses your question more directly.

I checked those sites but it looks like they are development kernels? This system is for my wife so it has to be stable. Are there any stable 2.6.14 kernels available or am I missing something regarding Clemson edu link you provided?
Sorry for all the questions, I'm new to all this. The learning curve is huge for me!

Don't worry, we've all been there at one point. Part of the problem with updating your kernel so that it is newer than your distrobution is that the kernel relies on other packages (such as udev) to work properly. Simply upgrading your kernel may not be enough (as appears on that Clemson site). And as you can see, it can be quite a lengthy process. I've been using the Intel wireless drivers since prior to 2.6.14 and doing it using the first site I linked to. If it were me, I'd focus more on trying the first link rather than the second.

Technically, the 2.6.15 kernel is the latest stable kernel.

Thanks. I just realized I have an update program.(up2date) I conected to the internet using my dsl and lan nic(which works, thank God.) and am running the update. one of the updates was the 2.6.15.... kernel. I think the updater will take care of the other packages hopefully? I think I saw udev in the list as well. I was hoping to avoid the driver thing because it looked complicated. I'll tackle it if this dosen't work.

Yes, if you can use an updater package, that will usually take care of any dependencies (at least in FC4, it should). You may still need to download the firmware though and install it yourself.

Great! I already downloaded the firmware, just waiting for the updater. Hopefuly this will work. Thanks for all your help, Tino27!