I tried 6.10 live yesterday on my laptop. Its by far in my opinion the nicest desktop distro I've used.
so contact your manufacturer.....
They don't release Linux drivers? Drivers arn't in the kernel? Probably because they refuse to provide samples/documentation for the Open source community to build them. Place blame where blame is due please.
I d/l'ed 6.10 and tried it on my Inspiron 6000. It booted quickly and the desktop was pretty snappy, considering it was having to load from CD. It set my correct desktop resolution and ran beautifully at 1680*1050 on my widescreen.
It found my Intel 2200BG wifi adapter, but it was not enabled by default. Even after I enabled it, I could never get any connectivity. I even manually entered the SSID and IP address and DNS and such, but I could never surf. To be honest, I couldn't find a way to tell whether or not it even saw the router.
Is there any utility on the CD to show available networks and to configure/connect to them? I saw the little network status app in the upper right of the desktop, but it would only show io for 127.0.0.1 and wouldn't give me an option to switch to eth0 or eth1.
Any ideas?
Joe
It found my Intel 2200BG wifi adapter, but it was not enabled by default. Even after I enabled it, I could never get any connectivity. I even manually entered the SSID and IP address and DNS and such, but I could never surf. To be honest, I couldn't find a way to tell whether or not it even saw the router.
Is there any utility on the CD to show available networks and to configure/connect to them? I saw the little network status app in the upper right of the desktop, but it would only show io for 127.0.0.1 and wouldn't give me an option to switch to eth0 or eth1.
Any ideas?
Joe
This is all I see about it, other than no IPv6 router is found for either it or the wired (Broadcom) connection. BTW... I'm typing this on the laptop and it works fine wired. It also says something about the driver needing updating, but this release (6.10) JUST came out!
Joe
Joe
Nothinman
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That's for the kernel developers, you can ignore that.
If you do 'ifconfig eth1 up' (assuming it gets assigned eth1) does it print anything in the kernel logs? Or you can just skip this fumbling around and just look at the instructions at http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php and see if you already have the firmware on the machine or not.
lxskllr
No Lifer
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I'm not interested in placing blame. I don't really care whose fault it is that I can't get my wireless adapter to work. I'm just taking exception to the statement that it's all plug and play, and there's nothing easier to work with than an Linux install. I've used 3 versions of Ubuntu, and 1 version of SUSE and I've had 56k and wireless issues with all of them. I can't use Linux for a serious os until I can get networking up and going, plain and simple
.
Nothinman
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But it does matter, if no one tells the manufacturers that they want Linux support it'll have even less of a chance of happening. When the hardware is supported it's much, much simpler in Linux but when it's not it's usually equally more difficult or even impossible. A little while back a friend of mine put Dapper on his notebook and absolutely everything worked out of the box. Video (no accelleration though), sound, NIC, wifi, SD reader, etc. Have you ever had that happen with Windows? No, of course not, with Windows there's always a handful of extra drivers to install and a dozen or more reboots for them and patches and crap.
That's probably because those are Linux's weakest points. If you had a real hardware modem your dial-up would work fine, but chances are it's a WinModem and manufacturers aren't too keen on releasing specs for them. And on top of that most people have broadband now so modem support isn't very important to most people. Wireless is another story, each manufacturer has their own problems but a few like Atheros, Intel (I think) and soon Broadcom bcm43xx stuff will work out of the box just fine. They need extra closed crap like Atheros' HAL and Intel's firmware but I believe they're redistributable so it shouldn't be a problem.
But since it doesn't look like you even posted what kind of card it was, no one can guess what problems you're running into.
lxskllr
No Lifer
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Ok, I did my own searching around the net, but I'll try here. It's a Dlink DWL G-120 I've tried ndiswrapper without much luck. The hardware's recognized, but I can't connect to my router or anything. I was reading up on a driver that may work, but it involves recompiling the kernel. I was going to give that a shot after a small break from this weekend. I guess I need to download the kernel source, then recompile according to the directions, right?
Tia for any help you can provide. It would be awesome if I could get this thing working in Ubuntu :thumbsup:
Tia for any help you can provide. It would be awesome if I could get this thing working in Ubuntu :thumbsup:
Nothinman
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The website says: "Linux users can download open source drivers at prism54.org. D-Link does not support these drivers. Use at your own risk."
So I guess you need to figure out which chipset you have, once it's plugged in lspci should give you some clue and then you can figure out which parts of the prism54.org page apply to you.
So I guess you need to figure out which chipset you have, once it's plugged in lspci should give you some clue and then you can figure out which parts of the prism54.org page apply to you.
It looks like it's a prismgt chipset so that prism54.org page would be of interest. Yours is a 'softmac' version and thus you require having drivers that are in heavy development.
It's not going to be easy to get it working, unless your lucky, but it should be possible. You shouldn't have to recompile the kernel though. The driver should be aviable as a module.
Were did you see that? I am not sure if I am correct as I dont' have one of those devices...
It's not going to be easy to get it working, unless your lucky, but it should be possible. You shouldn't have to recompile the kernel though. The driver should be aviable as a module.
Were did you see that? I am not sure if I am correct as I dont' have one of those devices...
lxskllr
No Lifer
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I'll have to get back to you on where I saw that. The bookmark is on my laptop with the Ubuntu install. I was looking at the prism54 site, but some of the drivers require custom firmware. I'm afraid to use that because I don't want to hose the adapter for Windows use. I've been trying to get it working without altering the adapter. I may end up trying the firmware change, but I'd rather do that as a last resort.
Ya your not flashing firmware or anything like that.
The reason you have to load firmware is because there is _no_ on-board firmware. It's a cost saving feature for manufacturers.. instead of adding the firmware onto a small bit of ROM on the device they have it loaded by the drivers at run time. The Windows drivers have firmware images embedded in them also.
The reason you have to load firmware is because there is _no_ on-board firmware. It's a cost saving feature for manufacturers.. instead of adding the firmware onto a small bit of ROM on the device they have it loaded by the drivers at run time. The Windows drivers have firmware images embedded in them also.
lxskllr
No Lifer
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Ah, thanks for the info guys. I thought it would be flashing a bios chip . I'll give that Prism54 site another look in the next day or two. Hopefully their drivers will work using the custom firmware.
Since you've been helping me with this... Is there a way I can log in as root using the gui to move files? I'm not really familiar with the file structure, so I was trying to drag & drop files in "view computer"(or something like that) area, but it said I didn't have permission to do so. I did get it using the cli, but it was a convoluted process because I'm not familiar with the syntax or commands.
Thanks a lot for the help :thumbsup:
. I'll give that Prism54 site another look in the next day or two. Hopefully their drivers will work using the custom firmware.Since you've been helping me with this... Is there a way I can log in as root using the gui to move files? I'm not really familiar with the file structure, so I was trying to drag & drop files in "view computer"(or something like that) area, but it said I didn't have permission to do so. I did get it using the cli, but it was a convoluted process because I'm not familiar with the syntax or commands.
Thanks a lot for the help :thumbsup:
And while you guys are chewing on his question, here's another... is there a way to browse available wifi networks?
Joe
Joe
There is also Network Manager. I've heard goodness about both, though personally I've just used the built in network configuration since I only connect my wireless to one network.
NetworkManager works GREAT, nm-applet in gnome and knetworkmanager in kde for the gui front ends. true hotplugging and wireless network selection. works fantastic
For moving files around graphically as root try:
sudo nautilus --browser
also to prepare your system for compiling kernel drivers isn't to hard. If you have 'universe' repository enabled in Ubuntu (it's aviable by default in Debian) you can use a program called 'module-assistant' to prepare your system (and build and install kernel drivers that have source code deb packages).
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
# to make sure your system is up to date. if there was a kernel update then reboot to use the new kernel
apt-get install module-assistant
m-a update
m-a prepare
# and that should be that. It should install your kernel headers package for your kernel and build-essentials for compiling stuff and maybe a few other things.
For browsing networks I use network-manager and it seems to work fine. It's not 100% for me though. If you want using the command line to connect to networks is usefull sometimes. Sometimes some wireless access points just kinda suck and don't work well with certain types of wifi cards. For isntance at work they have a AP setup for people that come in with their laptops to do presentations and such. It's seperate from the rest of the network and I've gotten permission to connect to it from my laptop.
Well it worked for a long time, but it was just a cheap 'home router' type thing and it crapped out. Somebody then brought in a old one from their home and I couldn't connect to it. Eventually I figured out the correct magical incantation to get it to work and I stuck it in a text file and now run it as a bash script when I want to connect from work.
commands:
ifconfig: used to do normal ethernet configuration
iwconfig: used to work the wireless extentions
iwlist: used to scan for networks
rmmod: unloads modules (aka 'drivers') (warning: not-so-good modules can cause instabilities when unloaded)
modprobe: loads modules
dhclient: tries to autoconfig a network interface. There are other dhcp client programs also, different distros use different ones.
dmesg: see kernel messages. This will help you to know what is going on with your hardware and OS.
# so... when trying to configure wireless ethernet by hand try the following stuff.
# If your using network manager with the nm-applet then right click the applet and disable wireless.
sometimes it helps to remove and reload the module. It'll kinda 'reset' the hardware, but it may not be safe to do. It's pretty likely to cause problems, make sure you have everything saved and such. Also you need to know what module your device uses.
rmmod module-name
modprobe module-name
# Find out what device has the wireless extensions..
iwconfig
# bring your device up.. (assuming it's called wlan0)
ifconfig wlan0 0.0.0.0 up
# scan for wireless access points. It'll tell you which ones are open and have security stuff and signal strength and so on.
iwlist wlan0 scan
# connect to one
iwconfig wlan0 essid "myaccesspointname"
# check out dmesg to see if the negotiation was successfull.
dmesg
# configure device
dhclient wlan0
So if everything was succesfull then you should be now connected. Check out the 'man' files for the manual for each of those commands. (to do that you go "man commandname" ) There are many options for different things you can do, like instead of just specifing the 'essid' you can specify the actual 'ap' number (xx:xx:xx:xx:xx).
Also other things that may be interesting to play around with are:
kismet: stealth wireless network detection. Unlike things like network stumbler this is passive and listens on channels for wireless access points. It has many capabilities including things like AP decloaking and support for GPS devices for mapping out ap points and all sorts of stuff like that.
wireshark: Used to be called ethereal. It's a ethernet packet sniffer with many capabilities including things like automaticly detecting and supporting analizing of many different types of network protocols.
nmap: port scanning and operating system detection.
wpa_supplicant: system for configuring wpa support and such. You see network-manager and such is great for mobile devices that connect to various APs in a random fasion and such.. but it's not that usefull for when you need to setup a server or something like that that uses static IP configuration or requires special routing configurations and other things like that. For stuff like that you'd just use the regular network configuration stuff aviable for your system.
And lots of stuff like that. All of that should be aviable by default for Ubuntu (or at least avaible via universe) or Debian and should be easily obtainable for any other distro.
sudo nautilus --browser
also to prepare your system for compiling kernel drivers isn't to hard. If you have 'universe' repository enabled in Ubuntu (it's aviable by default in Debian) you can use a program called 'module-assistant' to prepare your system (and build and install kernel drivers that have source code deb packages).
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
# to make sure your system is up to date. if there was a kernel update then reboot to use the new kernel
apt-get install module-assistant
m-a update
m-a prepare
# and that should be that. It should install your kernel headers package for your kernel and build-essentials for compiling stuff and maybe a few other things.
For browsing networks I use network-manager and it seems to work fine. It's not 100% for me though. If you want using the command line to connect to networks is usefull sometimes. Sometimes some wireless access points just kinda suck and don't work well with certain types of wifi cards. For isntance at work they have a AP setup for people that come in with their laptops to do presentations and such. It's seperate from the rest of the network and I've gotten permission to connect to it from my laptop.
Well it worked for a long time, but it was just a cheap 'home router' type thing and it crapped out. Somebody then brought in a old one from their home and I couldn't connect to it. Eventually I figured out the correct magical incantation to get it to work and I stuck it in a text file and now run it as a bash script when I want to connect from work.
commands:
ifconfig: used to do normal ethernet configuration
iwconfig: used to work the wireless extentions
iwlist: used to scan for networks
rmmod: unloads modules (aka 'drivers') (warning: not-so-good modules can cause instabilities when unloaded)
modprobe: loads modules
dhclient: tries to autoconfig a network interface. There are other dhcp client programs also, different distros use different ones.
dmesg: see kernel messages. This will help you to know what is going on with your hardware and OS.
# so... when trying to configure wireless ethernet by hand try the following stuff.
# If your using network manager with the nm-applet then right click the applet and disable wireless.
sometimes it helps to remove and reload the module. It'll kinda 'reset' the hardware, but it may not be safe to do. It's pretty likely to cause problems, make sure you have everything saved and such. Also you need to know what module your device uses.
rmmod module-name
modprobe module-name
# Find out what device has the wireless extensions..
iwconfig
# bring your device up.. (assuming it's called wlan0)
ifconfig wlan0 0.0.0.0 up
# scan for wireless access points. It'll tell you which ones are open and have security stuff and signal strength and so on.
iwlist wlan0 scan
# connect to one
iwconfig wlan0 essid "myaccesspointname"
# check out dmesg to see if the negotiation was successfull.
dmesg
# configure device
dhclient wlan0
So if everything was succesfull then you should be now connected. Check out the 'man' files for the manual for each of those commands. (to do that you go "man commandname" ) There are many options for different things you can do, like instead of just specifing the 'essid' you can specify the actual 'ap' number (xx:xx:xx:xx:xx).
Also other things that may be interesting to play around with are:
kismet: stealth wireless network detection. Unlike things like network stumbler this is passive and listens on channels for wireless access points. It has many capabilities including things like AP decloaking and support for GPS devices for mapping out ap points and all sorts of stuff like that.
wireshark: Used to be called ethereal. It's a ethernet packet sniffer with many capabilities including things like automaticly detecting and supporting analizing of many different types of network protocols.
nmap: port scanning and operating system detection.
wpa_supplicant: system for configuring wpa support and such. You see network-manager and such is great for mobile devices that connect to various APs in a random fasion and such.. but it's not that usefull for when you need to setup a server or something like that that uses static IP configuration or requires special routing configurations and other things like that. For stuff like that you'd just use the regular network configuration stuff aviable for your system.
And lots of stuff like that. All of that should be aviable by default for Ubuntu (or at least avaible via universe) or Debian and should be easily obtainable for any other distro.
lxskllr
No Lifer
- Nov 30, 2004
- 57,925
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Great info Drag, thanks for the time you've been spending on this. I probably won't get to play with it until Thursday, I've been busy with Halloween, and the kids. I'm hoping the Prism54 drivers and firmware do the trick, that looks like the easiest way.
I don't really know how Linux works, but if I got a working driver together would it be of use to other people? Or are Linux (Debian) installations all different enough that my setup couldn't be used by others?
The reason I ask, is it seems as though all it would take is 1 person to get a decent driver package, then put it up somewhere so others could use it without going through all of the hassle of the first time tweaker.
I don't really know how Linux works, but if I got a working driver together would it be of use to other people? Or are Linux (Debian) installations all different enough that my setup couldn't be used by others?
The reason I ask, is it seems as though all it would take is 1 person to get a decent driver package, then put it up somewhere so others could use it without going through all of the hassle of the first time tweaker.
I've tried (on an FC4 machine) to install the following just to look at them, but without success with the following command(s):
yum install network-manager
yum install NetworkManager
yum install nm-applet
yum install knetworkmanager
In each case I get "No Match for argument:"
I have both KDE and gnome installed on the machine and it's been working fine for a couple years. Do I have the wrong names? Are they perhaps not in the yum repositories? Am I just doing something stupid here?
Joe
yum install network-manager
yum install NetworkManager
yum install nm-applet
yum install knetworkmanager
In each case I get "No Match for argument:"
I have both KDE and gnome installed on the machine and it's been working fine for a couple years. Do I have the wrong names? Are they perhaps not in the yum repositories? Am I just doing something stupid here?
Joe
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