This is my first post (see the pride), and yes I'm a newb, but I have taken an excellent certification training class, although I've not taken the exam.

The class was so great I've been converted. Now, if only I could get a few things straightened out...

I am unable to find clear instructions on how to get my wifi pcmcia card to work on my laptop.

Dell Inspiron 8200
Fedora Core 4
KDE 3.5.1
Card is WPC54G ver3

I keep seeing solutions involving the NDISwrapper, but the solutions all assume I know what that is and have installed it, etc. So, I think I need some direction on where to begin.

I also have a minor problem with the logon screen, if anyone has the time. I finally got my nvidia card to display something other than 800x600, and once I log in it's very nice. However, the logon screen is strange. It is very large and goes off the monitor, and when I move the mouse over to the side, it slides over to display the rest (does that make any sense?)

Thanks in advance,
PortlandJoe

In case you don't have it already, ndiswrapper is here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/

Really simply put, what it does is translate the windows driver (you need the .inf and the .sys from windows) into a linux driver. Note that this isn't emulation, it's an API translation, so the speed hit is minimal.

Installation instructions are here. Besically, you need to get the source, build it, then configure ndiswrapper to be a module. Really pretty simple if you follow the instructions linked above. If you're using WPA, remember to get wpa_supplicant, as you'll need that too.

As for your login screen, I don't really have any idea. Only time I've seen anything like that is when I (somehow) set my resolution higher than the monitor could handle, but that was in windows, and with an ATI card.

Good luck with it.

Wow that was fast! Thanks for the help. That got me a few steps ahead, and now I'm stuck again:

I got ndiswrapper installed successfully and it appears to be functioning correctly. I then downloaded the drivers for my wifi card (WPC54G v3) and successfully "wrapped" them. I received the message from ndiswrapper that "Driver installed, Hardware Present", but I'm unsure of what to do next.

I went into the Control Panel, then clicked on Network, Wireless Networks. It is set to AutoDetect, and it errors saying it's detected nothing. What is the next step?

Thanks again, sorry this is so tedious.
PortlandJoe

'modprobe ndiswrapper' at a root prompt then try the auto detect thing again

Every detail you will need to know is described in install file in ndiswrapper file. If you follow them carefully you can get it work. Good luck

I will read the ndiswrapper install file. Thanks for the tip.

One really odd thing is, I got ndiswrapper to work, although I have yet to figure out the whole wifi process, but the darn graphics card has stopped working. arg!