Mirco Scara wrote:
Hello guys,
I two days ago purchased a brand new Belkin Wireless G Desktop network
card that wasn't absolutely recognized by Fedora 4.
I took some adjusting till I spoke to a Belkin representative and they
advise me to use the LINUXANT.COM procedure to install the windows xp
compatible driver.
I had to reinstall Windows XP on my machine in order to be able to get
the exact necessary windows drivers files.
The card this way seemed to be working somehow but strangely it seemed
to be only getting connected to my friend's wireless access point , who
funny enough lives at 100 meters across the street from me .
No sign of getting connected to my router which is placed just on the
window ledge behind the computer.
I started thinking that it is probably or most likely a problem with
using the the win xp drivers in fedora.
The card works obviously in win xp.
I spent now 3 days trying to get it connected to my router with FEDORA,
SUSE 10 but nothing I only get connected to a remote and very slow
external access point but not mine.
ARE THERE ANY WIRELESS CARDS THAT WOULD JUST WORK OUT OF THE BOX WITH
FEDORA 4?
PLEASE HELP.
MIRCO
My experience is with a laptop, not a desktop. But when I bought a Dell
Inspiron 1200, I also bought a Netgear WAG-511 Dual-band PCMCIA card to
go with it. Then I installed Fedora Core 4, and then the latest kernel,
and then--vital!--the "madwifi" kernel module for that kernel.
("madwifi" stands for Multi-band Atheros Driver for WIreless FIdelity.")
Then I rebooted--with the WAG-511 card in place--and brought up
system-config-network (GNOME option: Desktop->System Settings->Network).
That program recognized my new card as "ath0" (the "ath" is for
"Atheros," the chipset maker). All I had to do was specify a Service Set
IDentifier (SSID or ESSID) and a Wired Equivalent Privacy key, save the
configuration, and reboot once more--and then I could connect.
For your desktop, if you're getting brand-new equipment, I have taken to
advising people to buy open-standard hardware from the get-go. Atheros
Communications has been very good about cooperating with the open-source
community--that is how the "madwifi" project could get started, as
"madwifi" is /not/ a product of Atheros, but an all-volunteer project
that uses technical information which Atheros was generous enough to
provide.
Frankly, I don't even know what chipset the Belkin card uses. I have
seen other card makers change chipsets rather suddenly. The Linux
community has really gone above and beyond the strict call of duty to
provide projects like "ndiswrapper" for loading Windows drivers into a
Linux kernel for wireless communication. But that approach will go just
so far. Considering the dirt-cheap price of wireless adapter cards
today--and even of wireless bridges that use your regular Ethernet
interface--the decision to recommend open-standard hardware, with which
Linux can already work "natively," becomes a no-brainer.
Of course, if you buy a laptop with a closed-standard wireless device
built in, you're stuck. So that greatly influences your choice of
laptops. Do what I did, if you can get away with it: buy a laptop
/without/ any built-in wireless, and add to it a card for which you can
get a decent Linux-"native" kernel module (like madwifi).
Temlakos
