I am having trouble completing connection to a new Motorola SBG6580 Surfboard wireless cable router with my Dell Dimension 4400 (circa 1992) desktop computer running Linux Mint and using a Netgear 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter WG311T. The new router appears on my computer but I cannot seem to complete the connection. I believe I need to select the correct settings in the wireless router connection area, but I don't know for certain which ones to use and what exactly needs to be entered in which fields. My internet service provider cannot help with Linux and the technical support at Motorola doesn't help with Linux.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

What ISP are you using?

My ISP is suddenlink.

Login on the router via a network cable, and see how wireless is setup.
wep, wpa, open...

Kind regards

Take a look at
http://www.midcocomm.com/_files/files/SBG6580.pdf
For the manual.

Kind regards

Thanks. Your link doesn't work.

It's a pdf file
Try
wget http://www.midcocomm.com/_files/files/SBG6580.pdf

Kind regards

I know most of the information such as SSID, WPA passkey, HFC MAC ID, etc. I have other tabs and fields in linux I don't know how to fill out. For example, should I need to enter a BSSID?, what selections do I make for the tabs IPv6 and IPv4; and others.

I get a message that the file is damaged and cannot be repaired.

It opened right up for me.

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with either that link or the pdf file.

Thank you. This link merely goes to the manual for the router. I already have this manual and it does not discuss connecting to Linux.

This reply may be a bit too late, but nevertheless, might be useful to someone.

Regarding the Motorola SURFboard manual: ugh.. what a horrible manual! Confusing use of acronyms, no glossary, no mention of Linux, as you say. I had a look at Suddenlink's customer portal and apart from a link to linux.org, they appear to have no knowledge of Linux at all - what a disappointing state of affairs. On wireless configuration:

BSSID: 'Basic Service Set Identifier': the MAC address of the access point (cable modem's wireless adaptor, in this case). NORMALLY NOT NEEDED because the SSID (network name) is used to identify the network.

You should not need to enter any information relating to the cable modem settings, since it does this itself and just passes all traffic to your system, via Ethernet. From the Linux end of the connection, you just need to use a normal Ethernet connection, or a wireless connection (Ethernet is better, until you get it sorted) and all settings should be on 'automatic'.

If you are having problems, it looks like your cable provider may be to blame and in spite of what they say, they do support you as far as the cable service goes.

Chapter 6 of the SURFboard manual discusses setting up a wireless network. Ignoring WPS for the moment, you'd do this (quoting the manual, with my comments added):

(Disable this, initially)

Pick anything memorable - it'll be visible to other wireless users too, of course.

I would choose 'Disabled' here.

I'd choose 'WPA-PSK' and enter a passkey - or you can choose Motorola's preset passkey. If possible, disable WPA altogether, and use an unencrypted connection - if it'll let you - you can enable it when you know that the wireless link is working.

On your computer, add a connection for the WG311T, and enter the same information as above.

If you have any further trouble, it'd be helpful if you could post a screenshot of your desktop, so I can see what configuration apps you are using. I briefly used Mint, but had some kernel issues that sent me running back to Ubuntu.

Lex