Installing Intel ipw2100 firmware
 

Hello,

I am a total beginner as far as linux is concerned. I have only ever used Windows and Mac OSX before, but I was recently given and old laptop from a friend which seemed broken,so they bought a new one and gave me the old one to play with.

It would not boot at all, and would get error messages when trying to reinstall windows with the original recovery disks. Anyway, I decided to try and install linux (mainly because it was free and would not cost me anything to try). I randomly chose Mandriva Linux One, because it only came on one disk so would be quick to download. I didn't really have a clue what I was doing but luckily the install went very well.

I've decided to keep linux on it and try and learn about it, however I cannot get the wireless internet working on it, the laptop has an intel centrino pentium M 1.3 ghz processor and when I try and set up wireless I get a message saying I need the intel ipw2100 firmware, I think I have downloaded the right thing (file called ipw2100-1.2.1.tgz) but I don't have a clue how to install it. (I'm used to just double clicking on something and it installs).

If someone could tell me how to install it, or direct me to a web site that will let me know what to do, (in really simple terms if possible) I would be very grateful.

Also, are there any good books I could buy to help me learn?, I've checked amazon.co.uk but can't find any specific to mandriva, or perhaps any good websites for total linux beginners?

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Julie

Welcome to linux!

Unfortunately, while Mandriva is one of the easier distros, its not *the* easiest. For system-level software such as this, you will need to use the console for a bit...

First, become root (i.e. type "su" in the command-line).
Next, move the firmware to /usr/src (i.e. type "mv /path/to/firmware /usr/src", where "/path/to/firmware" is the location of ipw2100-1.2.1.tgz)
Now, cd into /usr/src and uncompress the firmware (i.e. type "cd /usr/src && tar xvf ipw2100-1.2.1.tgz"). You will see a list of files scroll down the screen.
Next, cd into the ipw2100-1.2.1 directory that was just created.
Type "./config"
If all goes well (no errors), then type "make"
If all goes well, then type "make install"
Voila! Installed. To load the firmware, cd into /usr/src/ipw2100-1.2.1/ and run the load script (i.e. type "./load") to load the driver.

Chances are you will need the ieee80211 source as well. The url is ieee80211.sourceforge.net. Just decompress it in /usr/src. The ipw2100 driver requires ieee80211 headers to build, if I recall correctly. Also, at ipw2100.sourceforge.net, there are RPMs for Red Hat and Fedora, which should (in theory) work for Mandriva as well (if the aforementioned instructions scare you).