OK, so I'm branching off on my own thread here. I'm running Suse 9 on a HP Pavillion ze5300 (read: hunka crap)
The ethernet card is Hewlett Packard Company DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller. It has recognized wireless signals in the past without a problem. But it doesn't seem to find the Linksys WRT54GS router sitting FIVE @!#%!! FEET away!

**deep breaths**

I've got ndiswrapper installed.

Looking at iwconfig, I have in the past been able to see the linksys ssid a few times, but only just, and not been able to communicate with it. Usually, it finds some weak signal from across the road that I am desperately trying not to wardrive off of.

Any thoughts?

use iwlist to see that available networks.

If your network ID comes up, then you can connect to it. Just set it as your essid with iwconfig.

I got an error message: Interface doesn't support scanning.

Looking at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation as per agentvenom's reccomendation: I ran lspci and found my ethernet controller, then lspci -n to get the PCI ID. Not sure what to do with that, and my ethernet controller is not on the list that is supplied in the tutorial. Not sure how much of this is my ignorance or my computer.

By the way, thank you a thousand times for your help johndoe and agentvenom.

Does 'iwconfig wlan0' give you a message that says 'no wireless extersions'?
If so, experience tells me that the drivers aren't workng properly, and you're going to have to re-load them.
I've had that happen before, and a re-load of the drivers and a re-boot usually solves that problem.

That's probably it. I'm thinking whatever I have running for my wireless card ain't doing it right. Thanks again for all the help. I'll let you know what happens. Kinda teaching myself a lot here.

Meh,
Dave

Just out of curiosity, what's the quickest/easiest way to reload the drivers?

There are no stupid questions, just really, reeeeeeaaly ignorant ones...

Dave

At long last, I found the drivers for the Macphyter ethernet card, and there's even one for linux. Can't wait to try it out.

http://www.national.com/appinfo/netw...acphyter2.html

Anyone having trouble with the pavillion ze 5XXX line, linux, and wireless connectivity (and there seems to be a lot of us), perhaps this may work.

I'll let you know if it works for me.

ndiswrapper -e [driver name] <--- that removes drivers

That does not have to be the full path of the INF and SYS files.

Like, for me, it's ndiswrapper -e wusb54g


ndiswrapper -i [full-path-to-INF file] <--- that installs drivers

Still working on this end... I tried iwconfig wlan0 and got "No such device"

Huh, looks like I gotta install here.

By the way, I plugged the cable directly into the computer as well. The lights were blinking all right, but still didn't see the ssid.

Hey, I changed the router's security settings, all of a sudden I can see the router when I check iwconfig! Big step forward, but I'm not surfing just yet.

No, check that, it IS working!

Oh holy mother of all that is good in this world, it's working! I can barely read the screen through my tears! And all this suffering, all because of a security setting... Thanks, linksys.

So how do I set a key between my router and laptop?


Thanks again for all the help, guys. I learned a great deal this week, and I wouldn't have survived if not for your help. You guys rule like Jewel.

Dave