Newbie Question: Why can't I get my wireless card smc2635w working
 

I am a newbie (4 hours old to be exact) to mandrake 10.1. I have an smc2635w pcmcia card that I cannot figure out how to bring to life All the drivers on my laptop were easily figured out by mandrake upon installation with the exception of my wireless. I have downloaded the drivers ( ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz ) But being a Windows guy I am lost at what my next step should be. I need step-by-step instructions on how to install the drivers for the card. I need to know what to click and how to install. Thanks.

You need to find out what kind of driver your card uses (try lspci)? Mandrake might only need wireless tools, or try linuxant or ndiswrapper. Start off with all security disabled (firewall, wep, etc..) then enable one at a time to avoid issues. Once you get that go through this forum there is plenty of info for setting it up.

As I said I am a real newbie so my questions might seem silly. What do you mean what kind of driver my card uses? My card apparently uses the ADM8211 drivers if that is what you mean. I do not have any issues with my wireless network as of yet it is trying to get this card installed with these drivers. I need step by step guidance in order to install these drivers.

I'm not real familiar with Mandrake, so I will be of little use. Start by looking for Mandrake's package management program. It shouldn't be too hard to find. Make sure you have wireless-tools installed. Their package manager may also be able to install drivers for your card into the system for you.

You should also watch for rpm files. Mandrake is an rpm based distro. It is easier for new users to install.

If that doesn't help, try looking in the file you downloaded. tar.gz is a type of compressed (zipped) archive. There may be a readme file in there. The instructions may require compiling the driver yourself (requiring the gcc and kernel source).

Oh, and if the driver is already installed (which it might be), you can try to tell mandrake to use the driver that it's already got. There should be a nice, easy gui to help with this.

If there isn't, you can "modprobe myDriverName" the driver to load it into memory. If that doesn't work, then you may need to go install it.

Preferred driver on Linux for all adm8211 based cards is at: http://aluminum.sourmilk.net/adm8211/

Fastest way to get support for this is to contact me via the email address found inside the driver tarball, though I check these forums periodically.