Question Trouble with configuring WiFi card under Linux

[YL3GDY]

Hi All,

recently I was forced to replace WindowsXP with Linux on my old notebook (although it's Celeron 1.2GHz, 256MB RAM, it loads painfully slow under Windows, about 10 minutes on fresh install).

Now I'm trying to configure PCMCIA WiFi card (RT2500) for it. I've found drivers through internet, installed them following howto procedure. But Gnome doesn't see it as a network card, only as a device eth1, so I can't find any wireless network. Even it doesn't see properly ethernet LAN card, NetworkManager says that no network devices present. But I managed to configure it, and looks like it is working normally.

Does anyone have any ideas, how to solve this problem?

P.S. I'm using Debian Linux 4.0r5. If more information is required, please tell how to find it, and I'll tell you (I know Linux very very bad).

 

[willy88]

I would recommend trying an easier distribution than Debian, such as OpenSUSE or Ubuntu.

 

[YL3GDY]

I tried to use Ubuntu, took installs from three different sources(internet and my friends), but in all cases it was heavily buggy. E.g., I couldn't install any pack (whether it was rpm or deb, it caused a system error), other version was hanging on every second boot.

And my machine is very very slow, I'm afraid KDE would be too heavy for it.

 

[Tommy]

Do you have "wireless-tools" installed? you'll prbably need to install them, last I heard they weren't on the install CD (that could have changed with 4.x)

Also, I'd try using drivers available through Debian, Different distros put things in different places so Debian may not be finding the initscript or whatever is supposed to be activating the card.

You can probably get better advice from the Debian Support Forum : http://forums.debian.net/

That particular chipset should have native support already in the kernel (no driver needed), perhaps whatever you installed may have changed things so it's no longer loading the correct module.

BTW, Ubuntu doesn't use .deb or .rpm files. Software is installed through Synaptic (an application included with Ubuntu.) Not all Linux distro's are "interchangable", you need to use the package manager specific to that distro. For Ubuntu, for some things such ad DeCSS (for watching DVDs) or MP3 tools, you will need to add additional "repositories" (since these packages aren't legal everywhere, so aren't included by default). The Ubuntu documentation and forum will tell you how. For almost all software, it's a simple matter of opening the GUI frontend to synaptic, choosing the software from a list, and clicking th install button. Synaptic will locate, download, and install the software "automagically". Using packages made for a different distro can break your system, fail to work, or simply not install.

Linux isn't like a different version of Windows, and can't be treated as such.