setting up wireless internet on IBM Thinkpad 1171 with Ubuntu

halfwaynowhere · 07-17-2006, 06:32 PM

I just installed Ubuntu onto my thinkpad, and am now trying to set up the wireless internet. I have a netgear Wireless PC Card MA521, and i honestly have no idea what i'm doing. i have the software for it, but it only has windows drivers on it, and none of the .exe files are working. how the heck am i supposed to get this working?

serafean · 07-18-2006, 04:22 PM

Hi there, Linux doesn't use windows executables, so it's completely normal that it doesn't work.

Here is a link you could find useful : http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...model=RTL8180L

If I searched correctly, these are the drivers for your chipset (thus for your card). To install them , I guess unzipping the file and reading the readme should be enough.

P.S. Download the drivers for the 2.6.x kernel, that's the one ubuntu uses.

Good luck

halfwaynowhere · 07-19-2006, 08:42 PM

thank you so much for that! i really have a lot to learn about linux, i thought switching would be easy, i hear so many great things about it. i'll give this a try and then if i have any more questions, i'll be back.

halfwaynowhere · 08-02-2006, 07:41 PM

alright, i'm completely lost. i haven't really had a chance to work on it much because we are doing a lot of stuff around the house, but my brother dropped my dad's laptop, and until i can get that one fixed, my dad wants this one to work on the internet... i downloaded the driver, but i really don't know how i'm supposed to install it. like i said, i'm a total linux newbie, i don't understand much about it at all. the readme doesn't really help me, because i honestly don't understand what it says... the folder contains the following files, i was hoping somebody could tell me exactly what i need to do with them...

8180_26_private.ko
Makefile
r8180_if.h
r8180_pci_init.c
r8180_pci_init.h
r8180_type.h
readme26.txt
rls_note_1220
wlandown
wlanup

if anyone could spare a moment to help point me in the right direction, i would be forever grateful!

short101 · 08-04-2006, 09:17 PM

You need to install the tools for compiling code first. Install the build-essential package, then change into the directory where the source code is, and type "make" hopefully it compiles without errors) and then "make install" Thats about it. You will also probably need headers for your running kernel. You might want to ask in a ubuntu forum about general compiling issues.