RHEL - kernel-devel, repos and cml tools.
 

Hey,

I just purchased Red Hat Enterprise Linux, desktop, two days ago, and so far I am very satisfied. It seems like a firm distro, and it sure is fast and easy to use.

There was a few things "missing" from what there usually is in other distros, and I was hoping that with your help I could fix these problems and enjoy RHEL even more.

The first thing is: As I am trying to install ndiswrapper - I ger a problem with "kernel-devel" not being found, now I am told that with "workstation" included in my RHEL subscribtion I would have this, but I am sure there is another way of getting kernel-devel?

Second: iwconfig, ifconfig, fdisk -l, lsusb, lspci and so on, are not functional, what tools do I need to install?

Third: Trying to install Opera, it complains about libstdc (sorry if it's written wrong, can't remember exactly) not being there, all though it claims to be installed.

Fourth: Repos; I remember in Debian how easy it was to add repos in the apt/sources.list file to get more software, as well as third-party software. Could this be done in RHEL as well, and where can I find a repo that contains up-to-date software, and a lot of it?

That's all for this time, I hope some of you might find some time to answer and help me in any way!

All help is appreciated!

I know these questions might be laying around in this vast collection of threads, but I couldn't locate any of them by searching, neither with Dr. Google.

Thanks!

One can log in to RHN and manually download and install the kernel-devel and kernel-headers rpm packages (both are required for the dkms-ndiswrapper rpm package ,see below)

https://rhn.redhat.com/network/softw...NVREA&cid=6945
https://rhn.redhat.com/network/softw...NVREA&cid=6945

Yes they are functional, perhaps they are not in your path???
Example:
$ which iwconfig
/sbin/iwconfig

Use yum to assit you, for example:
yum whatprovides <something_here>
yum install compat-libstdc++

See: http://wiki.centos.org/Repositories

This will help with the ndiswrapper issue, after installing the rpmforge-release package simply type as root:

yum install dkms-ndiswrapper

.

Thanks a lot! Just by answering the way you did you improved the satisfaction even more!

About ndiswrapper: I got a fatal error saying the module ndiswrapper is not found, I tried with the correct path /usr/sbin - well, unless you wanna go in on that further you could advice on how to get a RaLink card working, it has the RT2500 chipset - I found a how-to for CentOS 5, and I assume that how-to could work on RHEL 5 as well, since they are built on the same foundation(?).

I will concider using RHEL on a laptop with that specific wireless card.

Hope you might be able to help!

Thanks a lot!

You can try this driver instead: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Downloads

Thanks again! I was in to that site earlier, but was not able to find any how-to's? Do you know of any?

I got a problem with a folder with 2.6.18.5rl not being found, kernel-related I guess?

By the way, do you have any idea about the ndiswrapper not being found?

See: http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...iver_in_Fedora

Thanks! I am able to send network information, but I can not receive anyhting, all though I am able to locate my network SSID. The connection is set up through a WPA connection. Do I need to configure it manually with if/iwconfig? If so, how are WPA connections managed? I am only familiar with configurating WEP-connections from the command-line.

Thanks!

First make sure you can establish a connection without encryption, after this is done you can enable WPA again. There are a large number of threads on this forum discussing WPA configuration/setup, also one can use goolge for assistance, for example;

http://linux.byexamples.com/archives...r-wifi-access/

Lenard,

Thanks again. All though that didn't quite help, I am back with the ndiswrapper issue. On RHEL5 I was able to install ndiswrapper, and the drivers for my wireless USB device. During modprobe, I get "FATAL error: module ndiswrapper not found" - and that is no matter what procedure I choose to use.

I have done this so far:

#/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i mydriver.inf
#cp /path/to/mydriver.inf /etc/ndiswrapper
#/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m
#modprobe /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
#FATAL error: module ndiswrapper not found.

What is going wrong here? And how do I enable ndiswrapper?

One more thing, on iw/ifconfig shows wlan0 - but the network manager does not - so I am bascially not able to configure that connection.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Then as root simply create an ifcfg-wlan0 file, example below;

Make sure that you also have a line entry in the /etc/modprobe.conf file like:

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

.

Thanks.

Where do I create this ifcfg-wlan0 file?

Will that fix the problems with the module for ndiswrapper not being found?
I will try this as soon as I get home from work. Will let you know how it went!

Ok, this is what I get:
"Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present. Check cable?"
When I try to activate the connection. The device stops falshing with the lights when I come to this point of IP receiving.

What could be wrong? I've tried to manually add the IP address to the config file, but to no luck as you can see.

The ifcfg-wlan0 file goes into the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory.

Edit the ifcfg-wlan0 file then, example changes:

BOOTPROTO=
IPADDR=192.168.1.11
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

Since your using a static IP address the BOOTPROTO line should be blank or the value to be none, example;

BOOTPROTO=none

The GATEWAY line is the insternal IP address of your wireless router, some wireless routers and not very Linux friendly and this value may be required.

Please adjust the IPADDR and GATEWAY lines to your actual needs.

In addition some wireless routers also require the ESSID line value to be filled in, example:
ESSID=MyRouter

I tried that, still no luck. It does not, however, complain about the IP not being found, now, the SELinux alert pops up, I think it might be denying the wlan0 config file. I tried to run #dhclient wlan0 from a terminal and that message came up.

Secondly, maybe I am not quite correct about the IPADDRESS and the correct GATEWAY - how can I find out what is really the correct entries?

It would help if you could post the output from the commands you use in the future.

As root type: iwlist wlan0 scan

For the IP address and Gateway info contact your system administrator or review your manual for the router or use the routers built in web interface.