I've installed Slackware 10 on a IBM A21m laptop. I'm trying to install a Belkin F5D6020 v 3 Wireless Notebook Network Card. I can't get my system to recognize the card. When I insert the card there is no beep and the light on the card does not go on. I've also tried booting with the card already inserted.

When I run "cardctl ident" I get the following:

Socket 0:
product info: "Realtek", "Rtl8180"
manfid: 0x0000, 0x024c
function: 6 (network)

But I get this when I run "ndiswrapper -l":

Installed ndis driver:
net8180 hardware not present.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to fix this? Thanks in advance for your help.

I got this card working (on SuSE 9.1) this weekend using driverloader

http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader

and the driver from RealTek site.

I had tried ndiswrapper before, but only using the Belkin driver from the CDROM.
I haven't tried the RealTek driver with ndiswrapper yet.

Thanks for the reply nickI-S. I'll give that a shot.

Is the light on the card active and does your system make a beep when inserting the card? Thanks.

The light comes on when it gets link established.
Note that I had to edit the .ini file from the realtek site to match the vendor/product
code for the belkin card. (I did a diff between bel6020.ini and the realtek one,
it was obvious they were similar - I can send you the edited version if it would help.)

My system doesn't beep when a cardbus card is inserted - ANY cardbus card not just
this one. This may be as simple as my having muted 'pc speaker' in my ALSA setup though...

Thanks for your help nickI-S. I'm going to give your fix a try tonite.

I was able to get it to work using the ini and sys files from the CD but I couldn't get the drivers I downloaded to work. Could you email me a copy of your edited ini file? hardbap@comcast.net.

Thanks again for your help.

E-mailed the modified file as requested.

For me the Bel6020.sys driver didn't work - if it does for you then you don't need
the downloaded one.

In my case the Belkin driver got me a wlan0 device, but changing WEP with iwconfig
didn't result in a link - never got a light on the card.

try the new belkin f5d7010 card and read my post, I'm on internet having configured my belkin card

And that's why i need to 5+ posts to write my success story lol

Thank you for the email nickI-S. I still have no luck with your modified .inf file. The Linuxant Configuration tells me "No devices found" when I use your file. It will only work with the the .inf and .sys off the CD.

iwconfig sees my card as eth0 not wlan0, is this a problem?

I also can't change the WEP and can't get a link. I'm not sure what else to do. Do you think trying to use ndiswrapper or Atmel Wireless LAN driver before Linuxant messed things up? I also tried editing /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf to put my WEP information, could this be a problem?

I'm at my wits end and about to throw in the towel. I'll just have to deal with my girlfriend yelling at me about the cable across the living room.

Thanks again for all your help. I really appreciate it.

A device on which I couldn't set WEP or get a link are same symptoms I had
with the Belkin driver.

I don't think it being called eth0 is a problem - distributions tend to differ.
(But a possible snag with eth0 is if something is loading driver for your wired ethernet
due to an alias to eth0 - is your wired ethernet another PCMCIA/Cardbus or on
motherboard?)


Before you thow in the towel:
Do "diff" between the belkin driver that sort-of-works for you and the one in my e-mail.
As a check that you card is really same as mine.

Do
lspci -n

and see if you get something VERY like:

0000:02:00.0 Class 0200: 1799:6020 (rev 20)

which is what I get. My edits to .inf file were to put the 1799 and 6020 into
various fields.

Thanks for your help and encouragement nickI-S. I'm going to keep trying. I was just a bit discouraged last night.

A diff between the Bel6020.inf you sent me and the Bel6020.inf from my CD shows no differences.

My wired ethernet is on the motherboard. It is assigned eth0, the wireless is actually eth1.

lspci -n gives me: 02:00.0 Class 0200: 1799:6020 (rev 20)

I got it!!!!!

Your fixed inf worked with the driver. I must have done something wrong last night. I also had the KEY wrong in my /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file.

Thank you for all your help and your patience.

Could you post a walkthrough of what you did? I can't seem to get it to work, same card, slackware 10 my laptop

EDIT:

Ok, got driverloader running now, and uploaded the drivers and everything seems fine. Seems beeing the operative word, as I have no clue as to how to connect to a wlan. Any tips?

Have you entered your wireless settings in /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf?

<example>
## --------- START SECTION TO REMOVE -----------
## Pick up any Access Point, should work on most 802.11 cards
*)
INFO="Realtek"
ESSID="PlaceYourSSIDHere"
MODE="Managed" # either Managed or AdHoc
KEY="YourWEPKey" # Passphrase is not supported
;;
## ---------- END SECTION TO REMOVE ------------
</example>

Also what inf file did you use?