New Linux user with a few questions - Networking and Drivers questions
 

I'm not totally new to Linux I have had some basic classes in Linux (Redhat 11) but I do not know some of the finer points on how to fix the issues I have and when I've searched for answers I read half answers that have an expectation of knowledge above my current level.

Here is the setup/situation:
Asus laptop (Core i7 quad and 8g ram), ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 graphics, Realtek HD Audio, dual boot Win 7 and Backtrack 5 RC2, Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 internal wireless card.

I am currently in college and am in a class that has us using Backtrack, this is why I'm using such a user unfriendly distro of Linux being so new. I'm having some basic issues and wiki's, FAQ's and general searching through Google has provided me with none of the answers I seek.

My questions (In order of importance):
1. Network: To be short, its not working. I have run "/etc/init.d/networking start" and then "service networking start" and despite looking as if the commands worked (Didnt give me a failed message) returns the following when running "ifconfig".

lo Link encap: LocalLoopback
inet addr: 127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope: Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU: 16436 Metric: 1
RX packets" 69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TXpackets: 69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier: 0
collision:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes: 4689 (4.6 KB) TX bytes: 4689 (4.6 KB)

And using the command: cat /etc/network/interfaces
returns auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Nothing I've found seems to gain me an internet connection.

2. Wireless drivers (specifically ones for use in monitoring/injection) how to install these and then how to get the wlan0 recognized and working.

3. Video drivers: my screen looks like it gets 2 FPS and I'm assuming installing the newest AMD drivers would resolve the issue but again.. no idea how to do that.

Sorry if it seems I've not research my own issue but I have searched quiet a bit and just not found what I needed to help me fix these issues on my own.

Thanks in advance.

Ok, your interfaces file does not have an entry for your wired network device. Please add the following:

Then try to bring the interface up using the following command on the command line as root

Hmm, wireless drivers should be installed already (but I'm not sure what you mean by "monitoring/injection").
Getting wireless working is similar to getting the wired interface working, but presumably you'll need to add essid and WPA2 configuration to your interfaces file. Here is an example for using wpa2, assuming that your wireless device exists and is called wlan0 (you can check with the commands "ifconfig -a" and "iwconfig".

Then again bring it up with "ifup wlan0"

I guess you don't have hardware acceleration working. Deal with the networking first, then we can come back to this.


HTH,

Evo2.

1 and 2. Same issue. The driver was added to the kernel at version 2.6.30. The driver is iwlwifi. Boot your system and open a terminal. Run this command: updatedb (to update the database used by the locate command to find things more rapidly that by using the find command).
When updatedb has finished, run this: locate iwlwifi. You should see it listed in /lib/modules.
Next, run: lsmod | grep iwlwifi. If the module is loaded, lsmod will list it. If it is not loaded, run: modprobe iwlwifi.

Then follow these instructions to get networking up and running in BackTrack.


3. You can get the graphics driver here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...eon_linux.aspx

Download the driver. The driver package ends with a .run extension. That normally means that you need to make the package executable to run it, and, since the package will no doubt want to install files in places the normal user can't write to, you should run it a root user.
To make the package executable, open a terminal and run this command: chmod +x <filename> (where <filename> is the full name of the driver package).
Then, as root, cd into the folder you downloaded the package into, and run the driver installer: ./<filename> That should take care of graphics issues.

PS: web searches aren't the only place to search for answers to questions. most distros have documentation you should read to find solutions to problems.

evo2
Thank you for the prompt reply, I'm in the middle of updating my Windows install but I will try your suggestion shortly and post my results. The only question I have is in reference to your statement:

"Ok, your interfaces file does not have an entry for your wired network device. Please add the following:"

My question is add it where, add that code via command line or edit a file and add it in? If I'm adding it to a file, could you specify which file and it's approximate location.

And to be clear, nothing had/has an identifier of eth0/wlan0 I just know that is generally the label given those interfaces. As for the monitoring and injection generally on Linux (from what I've read) you need a fairly specific driver for airmon-ng to function properly in Backtrack. With that said the Intel site said drivers should already be present if the Linux kernel is above 2.6.24 Link but I'm not sure how to check the Kernel in use in Backtrack

Thanks again

bigrigdriver
Thanks for your reply I will give that a shot once I am able, I was looking through the Backtrack Wiki/FAQ and found a different networking item that wasn't very helpful for me. http://www.backtrack-linux.org/tutorials/

I did try every place I could think of to find an answer prior to posting, must have missed the one you posted, thanks again.

Hi,

it seems bigrigdriver may have some good advice.

Anyway...
The file is /etc/network/interfaces .... it is the one you displayed with cat. You can use a text editor.

Nothing? What about the output of "ifconfig -a"?

Hmm, seems like you might be trying to run before you even know how to crawl. You can check the kernel on any *nix type system with "uname -a".

Evo2.

Status update:

bigrigdriver; your advice has worked for the internet connection via eth0, I do now see my wireless card but not sure how I connect it to my wireless network.

Evo2; your right, I am coming out of the gate knee deep in all of this, but Backtrack is the tool were using in labs and it is all a part of a methodology paper for my security class and I need to functionally show how I would hack a WEP encrypted wireless AP (I have a spare linksys I'll be using for my in class demo). It makes me wish I was a little more motivated after my initial Linux class to make Linux more a part of my daily usage, would make things much easier as I would have likely already had these sort of issues addressed.

Again I thank you both for the help and I will comment more once I have had a chance to work on this later tonight.

Finally had the time to sit down and input all the suggestions and everything is working like a charm. Now its just up to me to figure out how to operate Linux better. Dual booting with Win 7 and I'm hoping to dedicate at half my laptop time to working in the Linux environment.

I do have one final question, my laptop mfg doesnt offer any Linux drivers and I was hoping to find a way to disable the touchpad when there is a mouse plugged into the laptop as my giant monkey mitts tend to hit the touchpad while typing and cause me all sorts of hassle. I have this set in Windows but for the life of me I cant find anything resembling a control panel area or mouse settings in Backtrack 5. If someone could point me in the right direction I will be very happy.

Thanks again for all the help!

Actually, a little clarification might be handy.
In your 1st post you said you had "Linux (Redhat 11)", but there's no such thing.
There was the old RH Linux, which stopped at v9 many years ago, there is RHEL which currently has v5.8 & 6.2, and there the the RH R&D related distro known as Fedora, which I believe is on v16 at the moment.
Could you get into the cmd line and run
This may help people give specific advice.

Didnt know there was confusion, I said I had trained with a previous version of Linux not what I'm using now. But you are right it was Fedora 11 and then 13 that I had used in the past during my Linux courses.

My current Linux is Backtrack 5 RC2