Pcmcia wireless card woes for a newb

[Arog]

Hello all,

This is my first post here on the forum. This is also my first experience
installing Linux on a computer. I have a Toshiba Sattelite M35X-A111
where I am trying to get my wireless internet to work through my pcmcia slot.
The card that I am using is a Linksys WPC54GS wireless G notebook adapter.

Here's what I have done so far. In my ignorance, I installed Debian with a 2.2 kernel on the machine. Nothing worked right in that setup. Then I installed
by way of net-install Debian with a 2.4 version. I was able to get X working
with little trouble and the wireless card at least lights up now. Then I
thought that upgrading the kernel to 2.6.8 might be an even better idea,
thinking that there would be more wireless support with a later version.
Well, when I boot up with 2.6.8, the card doesn't light up at all. Its like
I have taken a step backwards. Therefore, I have chosen to try to get the card
working with the 2.4 kernel.

I have taken to doing a lot of google searches trying to find out what I
need to know to get the card working. I am afraid that I am ignorant to
the ways of networking and scripting. I have been making modifications to
/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts and /etc/pcmcia/network.opts as found on a
few websites, but nothing seems to register.

Here's some information that I am getting:

lspci:

0000:02:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
0000:03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)


iwconfig:

Simply state that lo and eth0 have no wireless extensions


ifconfig:

Just information about eth0 and lo... no wireless or pcmcia info


cardctl ident:

Socket 0:
product info: "Broadcom", "802.11b CardBus", "8.0"
manfid: 0x02d0, 0x0406
function: 6 (network)


/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts:

I added some lines in the attempt to have the wireless card be recognized as
follows (This could easily be one of my pitfalls) -

# Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireles LAN Controller
home,*,*,*)
ESSID="laptop-home"
MODE="auto"
;;



Any help getting this card to work would be greatly appreciated.

[jledhead]

I would suggest getting the newest debian installer cd and when the boot menu comes up type linux26 to install a fresh debian with a 2.6 kernel. you were right in thinking you would have better wireless support with the 2.6 kernel.

then you need to use ndiswrapper to get your card working
http://www.netdigix.com/downloads/de...ess-howto.html
scroll down to # 2 for the ndiswrapper install instructions.

[Arog]

Thank you for the link. Unfortunately, I was still unable to get the card to work properly. I even tried buying a different wireless card. In the end, I decided to put a wireless pci card in the desktop computer and use a long ethernet cord for the one connection on the router.

Now that i have stopped beating my head against the wall over the wireless issue, I am enjoying setting up my system the way i want.

Thank you
Arog

[chief_officer]

What I am tryingto do nowadays is to upgrade my kernel to 2.6.16. Once I do that, I will go to http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ and follow the instructions there to load the driver for my USRMAXg wireless adapter.

In your case, I would better go on with jledhead had said. You will find much better support with 2.6 kernel [Sarge installs 2.6.8].