I have a dell inspiron 5100 laptop currently running sarge with the 2.6.7 kernel. I want to get a wireless card to use with it and am wondering what the best regarded one might be. I also am wondering what kind of software i might need to have to use it...like a wireless connection manager or something. I'm using window maker right now, not a whole setup like gnome or KDE. and then would I need to do something to set up the interface, or should that get taken care of when install the card/driver?

thanks if anyone can get me pointed in the right direction

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...index.php/List
ndiswrapper is a window2linux drivers converter. Works fine. And of course there's many cards with native drivers. Another posters will probably recommend you their beloved cards .

Yea I'm not a fan of ndis !

I got a Cisco Aironet and it worked from the next boot.

I use ndiswrapper on my desktop and the ipw2200 drivers for my latop.

I find both pretty good. I found the ipw2200 for my laptop was a lot easier to setup.

The ipw2200 is a intel chipset base.

I am running 2.6.8 Debian sarge. I compiled my kernel and then install my drivers and it worked without a problem.

ndiswrapper was alittle more difficult. I found the howto alittle hard to follow as they said to download the debian source file. But I also had to download the ndiswrapper driver and install it.

On the ndiswrapper site under instructions for debian sarge it sort of skipped over the part of installing the ndiswrapper driver. It basically said to download the source file, untar it and enter the directory and make;make install. This did not work for me.

So I downloaded the ndiswrapper driver.

If you need to find out your chipset type the following command:

#lspci -v

and look for your wireless card. You can then copy the chipset name and search in google for the drivers.

Hope this is of some help.

Rgds

Ben

thanks guys, I'm a little new to the whole wireless linux things...so ndiswrapper is kind of a universal driver for certain cards, what is the ipw2200? the same kind of thing that ndiswrapper is?

or maybe if someone can point me towards a FAQ about it all or something

ndiswrapper loads windows drivers for use in linux. Its a wrapper, as the name implies

ndiswrapper is a emulator, it emulates a windows enviroment so you can load windows drivers.

ipw2200 are drivers written to work directly under linux with no emulation.

Just like a XP driver is written especially for windows.

The advantages of using a driver written especially for linux is it's more simple and easier to setup. ipw2200, all you have to do is download it to your home directly. Untar the file, navigate to the directory. Log on as a super user:

su (enter) then password.

make (enter)
make install (enter) watch for any errors.

One thing that is handy when trying to setup a wireless connection is that you have the applet for a wireless connection on your toolbar with in x windows. That way you can see when you have the wireless driver correctly install. Cause the indicator will show a %. If you have applets installed you can just wright click on your tool bar and search for the applet.

If the above process work you will have a % on the applet. Of course you will need your access point/router turn on.

Then all you have to do is bring up your interface.

The stages of setting your wireless connection are:

1.install the driver
2.setup the module to load on startup
3.configure and test your interface.
4.setup any routing info if needed.

Good luck

rgds

Ben

I disagree. Its not technically an emulator. Just a converter or interpreter, if those words can be applied there. Its sorta like WINE, for drivers (and we all know what WINE stands for =D).