Linux+ Linksys WPC11 PCMCIA card

does anyone know a distro I can use that will automatically detect this card so I dont have to deal with finding and istalling drivers and stuff for it? Its a pretty popular and common wi-fi card, but Ive got no use for the laptop if I cant connect it to the internet wirelessly-any help would be appreciated, I'm trying suse 9.2 pro, and I'm DLing ubuntu 6.06 if suse dosent work, hopefully one of them will...

 

I do not know of a distro which supports this card out of the box. Linksys used a different chipset with every version of this card. The chipset for version 4 (which I imagine you have) only recently got an open-source driver (which is available here: http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/), and I doubt that any distro has started shipping it yet. Earlier versions of the card should work out of the box with many distros.

Version 4 of this card also works fine with ndiswrapper, which is a program which lets you use Windows wireless drivers on Linux. This program may come with Suse 9.2, and if not you can install it, but that's extra work. As for Ubuntu, its hardware support list not only includes this card, but says that it "works great" with ndiswrapper (See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported)

 

When I don't know a driver for something in Linux, I pop in my handy Knoppix CD http://www.knoppix.org

It's a live CD distribution. Just boot up with this CD in your drive (and BIOS set to boot off CD first). It's really good at autodetection. Once it's finished booting you can
$ lsmod
to figure out the driver that it loaded for your card. Then, make sure that the driver you need is present in the distro of your choice and edit your init scripts to load and configure it (usually something like /etc/autoload.conf or /etc/modules.autoload)

If the needed driver is not in your distro, you may need a kernel rebuild, or find another distro.

 

Its actually a version 3.0 and on that ubuntu site it says it works right out of the box with no issues at all, so I'm booting into ubuntu now so hopefully that'll work with no issues

 

Ok I went into the live CD and it detected the wireless card and detected a network but I couldnt get it connected, so I'm gonna install it and then try it out

 

ok im done linux sucks on laptops, I went through like 4 or 5 distros and none of them worked right and not one could get the wireless card working, and I know a lot about linux too, this is why linux will never become mainstream

 

Funny. I know a lot about Linux, and it took me 20 minutes to get my system installed, configured with accelerated graphics and wireless, including WPA. You sound like you're trolling pretty well, though. Did you have a specific question you wanted answered about Linux? Or are you just looking for sympathy? People run Linux by choice. We aren't bending your arm to do it.

 

Yes I did have a question. I got very little help, I tried suse, 10.1 and 9.2 pro, mandriva 2006, symphony OS, and ubuntu 6.06 and none of them could auto detect my card. Even 2000 Pro can autodetect what it is with all the necessasary ubdates... so since 2000 pro (and XP but I didnt wanna put that on again) was the only OS to be able to do that it won. For my purposes if an OS can't just connect to the wireless network with a very standard and common wireless card it sucks. You can disagree with that and I'm sure many people do, but in this day in age I think every os (like windows and OS X espically) should be able to autodect both wifi cards and networks. Also none of the linux distros had a built in tool to search for avialable wireless networks, that seems like a pretty simple thing and I also think you need something like that.

 

Linux can connect to wireless networks just fine. If it doesn't auto-detect your wireless card, use the distro's network setup wizard. That's slightly harder than what you get with Windows or Mac, but they have their hardware problems too. Ever install a new video driver in Windows and get stuck at 640x480 with 4-bit color, or move a network card to a different PCI slot and have to reconfigure your network because Windows thinks it's a different card? I've seen both of those and worse. And if you really want to compare distros, let's talk security...

Anyway, if you're using WEP/WPA or the like, and you should, then you have to do some configuring of your wireless card anyway. No matter which OS you use, you'll have to go through some wireless network configuration wizard.

On Mandriva 2006, but built-in tools for doing this are:

net_applet - By default, this appears in the system tray at startup, at least in KDE (the default desktop in Mandriva 2006). Right-click on it, then go to wireless networks. It'll list every wireless network which it can detect.

drakconf (aka "Configure Your Computer" in the menu under System->Configuration or "Manage wireless networks" in the net_applet right-click menu) - Start it, click on the "Network and Internet" icon, then on the "Wireless Networks" icon. Again, it will list every network which is available, and let you configure how to connect to them.

See attached photo for a picture of my desktop with both of these applications in action (if I can figure out file uploading...)

 

yeah well thats far too complicated as compared to like OS X, you install it and on first boot it uses your card to autodetect all the local networks, you click the one you want, enter a password (if needed) and boom your done never need to do anything again. In windows, I pop in the card it opens up a new hardware wizard and tell it waht it is and boom its done and in XP you can use the XP wireless utility, in 2000 pro I used the one that came with the card.

and its too little too late I've got 2000 pro on there perfectly fine, and I have no issues with security so theres no benifit of using linux on any of my computers so I'm not going to waste any more time on it

 

And you probably pirate all your software, too. The benefit of using Linux is that the person who supplies your OS doesn't think you're a criminal just for using a computer.

 

no thank you very much, I dont pirate my software. I own both 2000 pro and XP pro (also XP home because it came with my inspiron but I've never used it). I get all of my office apps from my college for $60 a year, and all the other apps (roxio, macafee etc) either came with my computer or its freeware (itunes, acrobat, firefox etc) and I also know that for almost every pro app theres a free alternative, the gimp, open office, firefox, etc.

You say microsoft is bad because they assume that everyone steals stuff but you are worse because not only do you think that you are prepetuating it. YOU need to realize that not everyone who uses windows steals stuff too, because if you dont why the hell would microsoft ever realize that?

 

Well, this thread has gone way off topic... perhaps it would be best if it was closed before things get ugly.

I'm sorry to hear that you've had no luck getting your linksys card up and running under linux and have gone back to Win2K.

Making comparisons to OS X and Windows is a little unfair though. If hardware manufacturers supplied linux drivers for their hardware on the same disc as their Windows and OS X drivers things would be much easier.

I believe that point and click simplicity your descrbing under OS X is called Bounjour also known as Rendevous and ZeroConf. ZeroConf was initially developed under linux but has only very recently matured enough for mainstream distros to support it.

WiFi configuration under linux isn't as hard as you're describing either. Both major desktops have a network applet. You open it, select your desired network, optionally enter a password and you're done. How is this different from what you've described under OS X and WinXP?

 

its not easy to find. with OS X you have to do it when you load the OS and boot up the first time. In XP theres a little pop up that comes up and says "Wireless networks detected" and you just click on it (it even says something like "click here to view avialabe wireless networks") and then slect the network you want. and no matter how easy this applet is to use in linux its not that easy to find or set up, at least not as easy as a blatantly obvious pop up or when you whole screen just says "select a wireless network" and has all the local networks on there...

 

So, essentially you're just upset that things aren't done the exact same way, but for free in Linux? You're probably better off on Windows. You can lead a horse to water...

 

no Im not saying that at all. I'm saying that its not made very easy. My point is that, as I said earlier, linux isn't going to become mainstream anytime soon unless it makes itself a little more user friendly. I'm not saying there needs to be a pop up window, but what I am saying is that espically when linux knows its on a laptop, it should do somethign to make it easier to set up a wireless network. Untill that is done linux wont become main stream

 

I don't think anyone disagrees with the idea that Linux will be more popular the easier it is to use. I don't think the flamers are proving otherwise, either. However, I do think that your idea of "easier" isn't well thought out.

First, let's look at the issue of detecting the wireless card in the first place (separately from the configuration issue, which I'll discuss later). A factory-install of Windows XP or OS X will surely come with drivers for any card which comes with that particular machine. At least for Windows, the OEM does that. Apple, on the other hand, only uses a few different wireless card in its systems, so of course OS X has drivers for them. A lot of people see this and think that Windows/OS X has better hardware support because it works "out of the box". Your statement about how in OS X you just "load the OS and boot up the first time" makes me think that you're falling for that line of reasoning. Guess what? Smaller OEMs who sell Linux laptops (and there are a few) also make sure that wireless drivers are present and working on their systems, and comparing Linux installed post-sale to a Windows XP or OS X OEM install is not an apples-to-apples comparison. It may be reality, but that reality has to do with the politics of the computer industry, not with Linux per se.

Incidentally, on non-OEM installs, Windows doesn't play DVDs either. I have run into this twice now. There is no MPEG2 codec in Windows XP by default! That's why OEM installs of Windows come with little DVD playing programs which have fewer features than Windows Media Player but are installed anyway. They are installed just to get those codecs so that people can play DVDs out of the box. Again, most people think that Windows has support for this feature based on their experience with OEM installs, when in fact it doesn't exactly.

So, back to the topic at hand. What about cards which are installed after the fact (e.g. PCMCIA cards)? After reading today's posts, I decided to install a "Motorola Wireless PCI Adapter" (model WPCI810G) which I had lying around into my desktop Windows XP SP2 box. Upon booting and logging in as an Admin, Windows XP proceeded to detect a "PCI Device", ask me if it could check the Internet for drivers, and then stated that it failed to find them along with a check box which would prevent it from trying to find drivers for that card in the future. Not very useful, eh? As with Linux (and surely OS X as well, if OS X drivers for this card even exist) I would have to install the drivers by hand. So hardware installation is similar on all OSes if the drivers are not pre-installed, which is the usual situation.

Okay, so maybe you're more concerned with the configuration issue, the stuff that happens after the card is detected. At least in the post I quoted you seemed to be. Yes, Windows does pop up a little message balloon saying "Wireless Networks Detected" which makes it easier to do configure your wireless connection. We all know that. Honestly, I do not even know whether any given Linux distro does this or not. I have not used a wireless card in a recent version of Linux which was supported in the kernel, and for wireless cards which need ndiswrapper, the card is installed at the same time that the driver is, so there is no need for auto-detection. Anyway, here's the problem: I know that you don't know either, since you never even got your card to be detected in Linux. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some Linux distros did something similar to popping up a bubble. For example, RedHat uses a hardware auto-detection program called "kudzu", which is a complete pain in the a** about making you configure new devices during boot (using an awkard interface). Does that include wireless cards? I don't know, and I feel confident in saying that neither do you. So overall, I consider this argument weak. Do you actually know for a fact that none of the distros which you tried have some nice method of notifying the user once a new, supported wireless card is detected, a la Windows? I think not.

I should add to this that on Linux, you never run into contention between the Windows wireless controls and some wireless control applet installed by the manufacturer. Oh yes, I've run into that problem a few times. I doubt this problem occurs on OS X either, but I really don't know for sure. Anyway, the point is that Linux has at least that one advantage over Windows in wireless configuration.

In summary, I do not think that your conclusions are justified. Yes in some sense you are correct (sure, easier = better, no doubt about it). However, after reading your posts, I think that you are arguing that installing Linux after the fact is harder that having a Windows XP/OS X box with the drivers pre-installed (yeah, we know that, but it's apples-to-oranges) and then arguing some other points which you don't actually know much about. I can understand being frustrated after all the effort you put into installing multiple Linux distros on your laptop, but unless you have much better evidence, you probably shouldn't put so much effort into trying to support your "controversial" opinion. Remember, Linux users are unusually likely to be computer professionals of some sort (I'm a sysadmin myself) and those types are awfully hard to beat in arguments about computers. So just speak your mind and leave it at that. This issue is all opinions anyway.

 

well first of all your auto detec thing is wrong. I got my wireless card to work through system updates in windows not out of the box. this is an aftermarket PCMCIA wireless card so it never came with any computer. so linux and windows are equal (all apples use apples airport cards so its not a great argument by my point still remains its the easiest) and again. REGUARDLESS of how easy or great linux is. I (with a fairly decent background in linux-the only thing I've never been able to get to work is wireless) was unable to get it to work after 5 tires in 5 different OS'. I am not arguing AT ALL that "installing linux after the fact is harder that having a Windows XP/OS X box with the drivers pre-installed" My computer had no drivers for this card when I installed 2000 Pro. but I plugged it into the internet (as I did with all my distros) and did all the updates, and 2000 pro worked fine. and another think you need to realize is that the Linksys WPC11 is one of THE most popular PCMCIA wireless cards, and since most uses use linux on older machines ( I know many people buy new computers for the sole purpose of linux I'm just saying a large portion of people will use 'their old computer' or buy a cheap P3 or somethign for linux) most dont have built in wireless like in centrino.

But anyways. I'm done with this thread (goodbye!) and my point remains, for a mainstream user, stay away from linux for a laptop, windows or OS X will almostalways be easier to set up a wi-fi network. Desktops are another storry i've never had any issues with a wired LAN connection.