hi, i'm very new to linux and am having trouble intalling the drivers. i'm an experienced windows user, and use litestep as my windows shell so i'm used to the general feel of the gui. but when it comes to everything else in mandrake i find myself not having a damn clue of what i'm doing. the basic problem is i need to install drivers for my linksys wireless usb network adapter (wusb11). i have the drivers in a tar file but i have no idea what to do from there. i have read almost every read me file included in the package but i haven't the foggiest clue as to what their talking about. if someone could kind of give me a nudge in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

I have not tried this device, but i have tried with a different wireless usb. I could not get mine going (hawking).

Sometimes the hard part is just getting a driver, as sometimes they don't support linux.

Extract the tar file (tar -vxf file.tar), then look inside for any specific install instructions (README?). There is usually a process like config;make;make install or such. I looked a bit and see that someone claims the linksys is an amtel chipset. This was what I was looking at when i tried to get my hawking going:

http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/howto/howto.html

Which is for an amtel chipset, so you might be in luck. If you get it going, plase repost and tell if it was easy or not.

PS You need the kernel source for a lot of operations like this. This is usually not installed by default, so you should find your kernel version (uname -r) and then install the appropriate source (~40MB usually).

i've untarrd it and looked through almost all the readme files but haven't understood them. that page you gave me is a bit of a step in the right direction, i never knew anything about compiling (still kind of don't), but right now my linx keeps going into kernal panic so i haven't really gotten the chance to try any of it out yet. i'm going to keep windows running for a little while, it seems to cure the kernal panic problem if i run windows for a while and then reboot into linux. thanks for the info and i'll reply when and if i get this figured out.

L_stusek try ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/linux_release.txt ...

yeah i've read that file, it was in the tar. and i have no idea what it's telling me. does anyone know of any good tutorials on compiling and stuff like that. basically i want to find tutorials showing the andvanced windows user how to switch to linux instead of the more casual user.

Hi L_stusek, One of your remarks struck me.
I don't know that I'd classify myself as an advanced windows user, but when I started the migration to Linux, I found out that I had to start from scratch--even had to learn how to create an empty file. Orignially, I thought that it was rather patronizing for some experienced Linux users not even to respond to posts in these forums if the poster hadn't done even a modicum of preparation. For example, those statements in the README about which you "don't have a clue," "google" them. You'll be surprised.

There are many great tutorials and howtos available. Follow the links in this forum and you'll find some. Also, one of the great ones I discovered is Newbies Top Ten Commands. Give it a try and good luck.

thanks for that site. extremely helpful. now one more question and i should be set. where is the default kernal src in mandrake? when i run "make config" it looks for the kernal in usrs/src/linux which is not there. the readme gives directions on how to install a kernal you built yourself (no where near that stage yet, that's why i need the net) and gives no info on the default kernal stuff.

you must install mandk's kernel source in order to compile things. It should be on your mdk installation cd's. Open mandrake control center/package manager and do a search for 'source'. There's gonna be a 'kernel-source-2.4.24mdk.rpm' kinda named file.

Hey, L_stusek--

Last night I thought I posted some info that might be of some more use to you, but apparently the operator of my PC did something and the composition didn't make it to the board. Take a look at this site, choose the document format you want and scroll to the "Module-HOWTO" file. The document is entitled "Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO." Also, if you navigate around that site you will find documents on wireless stuff which I think addresses the reason for your initial post.

The module document talks about installing drivers and the pros and cons of weaving them into the kernel. It also talks about the /def/ and /proc/ filesystems and what you might expect to find there. This info coupled with learning about /etc/modules.conf may help you proceed.

Additionally, I would wait until you read the document before you did any more on re-compiling the kernel--unless you have a burning desire to do so.

Good luck.