OK, maybe the title is a bit starnge, but here is what I would like to know.

I have a laptop with a Netgear Wg511t wirless pcmcia card. I have tried several distros with little to no luck having the card recognized etc..

Then I tried Mepis and of course it works perfectly.

My question is : How do I know why it is working in Mepis. Is there a command that I can run that will tell me what is driving the card?
I would like to know this so that I can try other distros and simply duplicate what Mepis is doing to use the card.

Thanks

Try lsmod to see what kernel module the card is using. The iwconfig command should also give some configuration information. There are a number of other commands starting with iw you can look at too.

One thing I've noticed with Intel cards is that you often have to download the proper firmware for the card and make sure that udev loads it when initializing the hardware. I'm not sure if your card requires the same thing, but it may be worth a look.

First thing that comes into my mind is the kernel (driver) module; I'm not sure whether or not the driver for your card is built in the kernel, but try doing

and check out if the list contains a module name that would be for your card. google helps you out if you are not completely sure about some module name. also you could try it vice versa: google for what kernel module you need for the card, and then do lsmod and see if it's there (=loaded).

another thing is /proc directory where you could try getting info about your network card, by reading the files in there. or possibly check the boot- and/or other logs in /var/log and examine them for info about what's being done to your card. I'd say it's just a matter of loading a module to your kernel using modprobe and after you test and know it works, adding the appropriate module to be loaded at bootup.

Looking in the HCL section here located at the top and to the right. It says that card is Atheous based and uses the madwifi drivers.

Brian1

Here is what my lsmod displays. I recognize ndiswrapper and ath_pci from my readings, however how do I know which module is the one working ?



Module Size Used by
binfmt_misc 11144 1
video 16260 0
thermal 13576 0
tc1100_wmi 6916 0
sony_acpi 5516 0
processor 23360 1 thermal
pcc_acpi 12416 0
hotkey 11556 0
fan 4868 0
dev_acpi 11140 0
container 4608 0
button 6672 0
acpi_sbs 19980 0
battery 9988 1 acpi_sbs
i2c_acpi_ec 5120 1 acpi_sbs
ac 5252 1 acpi_sbs
ipt_limit 2432 2
ipt_state 2048 66
ipt_LOG 6016 2
ipt_REJECT 5248 2
ip_conntrack_ftp 7280 0
ip_conntrack_irc 6640 0
ip_conntrack 47148 3 ipt_state,ip_conntrack_ftp,ip_conntrack_irc
nfnetlink 6296 1 ip_conntrack
iptable_filter 2944 1
ip_tables 19200 5 ipt_limit,ipt_state,ipt_LOG,ipt_REJECT,iptable_f
ilter
ndiswrapper 156628 0
dm_mod 52152 0
af_packet 21000 2
md_mod 64084 0
tsdev 7360 0
ath_pci 80540 0
ath_rate_sample 17160 1 ath_pci
wlan 144924 3 ath_pci,ath_rate_sample
ath_hal 148816 3 ath_pci,ath_rate_sample
snd_es1968 28416 1
gameport 14728 1 snd_es1968
snd_ac97_codec 83232 1 snd_es1968
snd_ac97_bus 2304 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss 46368 0
snd_mixer_oss 16896 1 snd_pcm_oss
pcspkr 2052 0
parport_pc 32708 0
parport 32968 1 parport_pc
snd_pcm 79880 3 snd_es1968,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
rtc 12468 0
snd_timer 22660 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 10248 2 snd_es1968,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart 7168 1 snd_es1968
snd_rawmidi 23328 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 8204 1 snd_rawmidi
sworks_agp 8864 0
amd_k7_agp 8204 0
ali_agp 6656 0
psmouse 32772 0
serio_raw 6916 0
i2c_piix4 8464 0
i2c_core 19984 2 i2c_acpi_ec,i2c_piix4
snd 50276 11 snd_es1968,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer _oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
floppy 55620 0
soundcore 9568 1 snd
uhci_hcd 29328 0
sis_agp 8452 0
shpchp 40384 0
pci_hotplug 26164 1 shpchp
yenta_socket 25356 3
rsrc_nonstatic 12288 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia 36668 0
pcmcia_core 38672 3 yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic,pcmcia
ati_agp 8332 0
nvidia_agp 7964 0
via_agp 9600 0
intel_agp 21276 1
agpgart 31816 8 sworks_agp,amd_k7_agp,ali_agp,sis_agp,ati_agp,nv idia_agp,via_agp,intel_agp
ltserial 11056 0
ltmodem 566638 1 ltserial
evdev 9088 1