[nylug-talk] A good guide to install wireless cards?

[Peter C. Norton]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 12:26:35PM -0800, matt b wrote:
>   Since I have a card that is supported I shouldn't have to deal with too  much morass, however whether or not some manufacturers release specs  etc should not effect the general installation method for wifi cards  under Linux. You may not be able to complete one or more of the steps,  but that doesn't change the procedures you use to install a wifi card  (just means you have to additional steps, or as noted, buy a supported  card.) 
>   

It does change the procedure, because your question just became a lot
more specific. It stops being "how does any generic card get
installed" which can include answers like "it doesn't work" or "use
ndiswrapper" or "build x y z".

Your question is now "how do I install a madwifi-supported pcmcia card
in an already-installed fc6 system".

>   So, the jury's still out on a basic step by step general   installation method.  In the meantime I have an orinoco silver  inserted into a laptop running FC6 and have seen now hundreds of pages  for all those morass type issues and not a single one that has helped  me get this vanilla case working. 
>   
>   Basically what I have been looking for is an elaboration of Peter's  step # 2: "install the card" 
>   

Install == insert in my description.

>   For example lspci tells me its Atheros AR5211. Great. Now what module  do I actually install? I've looked though /lib/modules/2.6.x/kernel and  don't see which one coresponds. 
>   

Use yum. Better yet, use google. I did a search of blogs using
google's blog pulldown. The search term I used was "fc6 atheros
module".

http://znark.com/blog/2006/08/26/macbook-wireless-on-linux

If that works, you can probably find one of the yum repos that
maintain this for you so you don't have to re-build with each kernel.

>   Of course I know from experience that this card is a good one and works  great if you happen to have it inserted when you did your original  installation. (So something knows which module to install!)
>   

I'm kind of curious that this took 2 minutes of searching for me,
using things that you've posted. It means to me that you have the info
to piece the puzzle together, but you're asking us to do the
legwork. I'm telling you how I did it, are you capable of getting the
same results?

-Peter

-- 
The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.