I am trying to use Mepis 8.5 and all I have is wireless. The problem is how to connect when my wireless card, wusb600n, will not connect. I have searched and did some research. I am missing the "build-essential" and other compiling resources. I am trying to learn to compile, but have little success.

I have used windows since 97. Started out with 3.1 then 95, and used 98 till '05. XP was a challenge for a while, but still not happy with them.

I just installed Mepis a week ago and still haven't learned to compile anything. I hope I can have others help me learn Linux. I know it can be intense on learning.

Thank you all, that will read and help.

Hiya,

I did the same about four years ago and it was tough - but well worth the effort.

Can I suggest www ubuntu com as a good place to start: it's not necessarily the place you'll end up tho', but that's part of the fun.

Oh yes, and most source downloads can be compiled with:

cd (where the gzipped/bz2 tar file is)
tar xvf (name of tar file - hit tab after you've typed a few letters)
cd (the directory the untar just created)
./configure
make
su - (or sudo) to switch to root
make install

Quick and dirty, but I hope it helps.

Finally, O'Reilly press do some great linux books
www.tldp.org is not a bad place to look either :-)

Regards,

Andy T

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first if the disk doesn't have the build-essential binaries on it then maybe connect to the Internet, there should be a package manager in mepis (correct me if i'm wrong i haven't used mepis in a while) and you might find what your looking for but if it doesn't work out then there are several other distros out there. what do you plan to use this mepis system for. i have been using debian and trying to get everything to work for w while. it's an expiremental project for me since i still have no idea how some things don't work. but the buld essential binaries are on the disk already you just need to use aptitude or apt-get to install them from the disk

You may find Xubuntu easier(Maverick Meerkat version only seems to work this way, not earlier ones)? If you decide to try it, once Xubuntu is installed click on the correct icon on the top right of screen (right or left click, not sure which) and an easy to use box appears with tabs to click on, and with mobile broadband dongles at least it does it all for you. Simple. But if your computer is like mine, a lowly Pentium III with about 550 Ram then you may find that, on a mobile broadband dongle, searching the web a bit slow, but it works. I am seeking a faster machine. Simple.

However due to the slightly slow way Xubuntu performs on my old machine for surfing, and that Xubuntu will not operate my old scanner (Plustek OpticalPro 1236P) nor my printer either, I think, (Epsom Stylus Colour 600) I have chosen Lucid Puppy 5.0.1. Lucid Puppy works the printer and scanner fine (after a bit of fiddling with the settings) and searches the internet acceptably fast enough for me. On it's lower screen resolution setting I had problems with the text of internet pages not loading properly, but it was fine in the higher setting. However I think a lower screen setting might aid the play back of DVDs, but it was okay anyway in the higher, but the DVD player could not do fancy things and the menu bar took ages to work so you can really only watch DVD's from beginning to end. Annoyingly you cannot toggle from one screen setting to another, it seemed to me, which is a problem. On the positive side, the Puppy DVD player is less jerky in its visuals than Xubuntu: which I suppose is to do with my slow processor not coping with Xubuntu's heavier demands.

However Puppy has problems: if you do not enter the dongle settings right first time: you cannot go back and re-edit them. So if you make a mistake you have to reintall Puppy. It also does not tell you what setting to enter. But if you have a Xubuntu live CD, you can get this to load the dongle and show you what the settings should be. Puppy can only have one dongle (Vodaphone, Orange, etc) loaded, therefore you cannot swop dongles. Xuubuntu lets you set up more than two dongles and you can switch between them easily. I have posted about this issue (somewhere else...but where it is, I am not sure at the moment!), as there is a way of overcoming the single-dongle-for-life issue with Puppy, by installing a second frugal install on top of your hard drive install. I hope to post this in detail soon, as you have to get it right first time... or start all over again, and in my case this has been time after time...so learn from my mistakes, why not? L8tr.

Older versions of Ubuntu/Xubuntu do not have this automated connect to the internet feature for dongles (or wireless cards?) that Maverick Meerkat has and I could not use them therefore, as I did not know what to do.

Puppy has newer releases, 5.1.0 and 5.1.1 (possibly called Fat Dog) which I could not get to work on my low spec machine (possibly the hard drive needs a different file system to ext2? I know Xubuntu uses ext4, I think).

If you have a higher spec computer you might like to try Ubuntu, which is the heavy-weight version of Xubuntu (or visa versa, Xubuntu is scaled down version of Ubuntu)

I like Puppy, but Puppy is not well house-trained however, and setting it up is problematic. I hope to post further on this. But when you know how to set it up it is not too hard a process, but the naughty puppy can get you going round in circles till you feel you really have a live puppy on your hands... and all they want to do is play and play, smiling back at you from the boot screen for the nth time you have to reboot!

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm sorry, this isn't clear. You are able to connect wirelessly, but you're looking for how to connect from a wired connection? Or you aren't able to get a wireless connection?

Mepis is based on and binary compatible with Debian. As with Debian, if you have an internet connection you can install the basic build tools with (as root or with sudo)
How to compile depends on the software. What are you trying to build?

I've been using Linux since about 2000 and haven't particularly found the need to compile anything*. Most Linux distributions have package managers which allow you to add applications and stuff. If you think Linux has to have everything compiled you'll find it's a lot slicker now than it used to be. This isn't to say that the facility to compile isn't useful, I just reckon it shouldn't be the first thing on your check list!

Play Bonny!

* I, er..., lied about this. I did spend a considerable amount of time compiling absolutely everything for a Gentoo install on a Sun Ultra 2 system with dual 300Mhz 64 bit UltraSparc II processors and 2Gb memory a few years ago.

I have AMD 1800 processor, 786 Mb RAM, It is getting out of date, but willing to use Linux to go on the web wirelessly. The computer that I am using right now is a Compaq(C@@P!) It has XP. Enough said on that. I'd like to surf the web and watch racing. Amoung other things. I am going to use an older computer as a server, if I get around to it. I get my service from my wifes brother, wireless-ly. Sometimes he has it shut off. LOL. In a couple months, I will get my own internet, and still do things using wireless.

I have conflicts with the card. Not connecting. I have tried a few things that I read about. Not sure if I have all the info on my disk.

I am hoping to build the driver set for the wireless card

What is the wireless card? Post the output of
EDIT: Ah, you mentioned in the first post it's a usb wireless card. Instead post the output of

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it was saying wlan0. and when I took the wrapper off, it isnt registering

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 1737:0071 Linksys WUSB600N Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Network Adapter

That is all it says for the card

"apt-get install build-essential" didn't work either. I did put the tar's in the download folder. 4 sets of them. neither will let me load them

I don't know anything about mepis, but if you're trying to install the packages without invoking root privileges, that may be an issue.

Here's my generic list of useful references for newbies (in addition to Google and LQ):

A good basic intro to Linux. It's oriented to Ubuntu, but the information is solid. I wish I had known about it when I started with Linux five+ years ago. (I have found about dot com to be a good reference site for a lot of topics--their CSS tutorials are excellent.)

The Slackbook. It's Slackware-oriented, so it's very good on basics, such as permissions, file structure, and the like.

Garrels's Introduction to Linux. Extremely detailed and very thorough. You can nose around the website and find *.pdfs that are suitable for printing. A printed copy sits on the bookcase behind me.

If you don't have an internet connection (or a local repository configured) apt-get won't do you much good.

From what I can find, your card should be supported by the rt2870sta driver. (You'll want the directions for Lenny.) The difficulty is in getting all of the necessary packages without an internet connection. If you are unable to get a wired connection for the purpose, you can also try apt-offline

I am using my other wireless card, for my Compaq Presario, to write and read this forum. I also try to get packages for the Mepis. But trying to learn how to put the packages to use is my problem. I did down-load Ubuntu and trying to figure out how to get the wireless working on it right now.

Well, That computer just quit on me. Board, memory or something died. Have to wait to get the parts again. Have fun ya'll