wireless problems, newbe to linux

[jakwi]

Hi all,

I've only been in the linux world for about a month. I'm still pretty new to it all. In that last month, I've reloaded a number of times and learned to fix many things, but this wireless card is elusive. As far as I can tell it should be supported natively. but before I get ahead of myself let me give some background.

Dell Inspiron Laptop 7500
500 Mhz Pentium III
Debian stable/testing kernel 2.6.15-1-686
I'm on it now with a dlink wired ethernet pcmcia card (DFE-690), No problems

My wireless card is a DLing DWL-650 version P, not the 650+. It has the prism2 chipset. I have tried both the Linux-wlan-ng and ndiswrapper with no luck. Last time with the ndiswrapper I was running kernel 2.6.8 and I screwed it up so bad I had to reinstall.

Right now I have run apt-get install linux-wlan-ng and apt-get install linux-wlan-ng-firmware and that went through with no errors, but I don't knwo where to go with it from here. The Wlan-ng readme, says it should work now, if not, it says to restart the pcmcia services, which I have done with no change. I've read and read and read ie rtfm, but I am truly out of ideas. I was just about to order an orinoco gold 802.11b card, as I've hear that they work out of the box, but then I've also read that my card should work with the orinoco_cs module and it doesn't. I don't want to waste money on another card that doesn't work.
Also there is an orinoco a/b/g card, but it seems to have a different chipset, atheros, which would require the same things I'm going through now, so I don't want to go there.

Other than this hickup I'm completely happy with my debian install. some people have told me I jumped in the deep end by going to debian, but honestly I haven't found it that bad, sure there was a learning curve, but I've been able to over come all of my problems with reading and googling. ie sound, no inet on bootup, no mouse when I upgraded from 2.4 to 2.6 etc. The wireless has me stumped though.


Anyway I've babbled on long enough. Any help would be sincerely appreceated.

Thanks
Jason

[jakwi]

No one has any ideas? even if you're not sure at this point I'll take anything!

thanks in advance
Jason

[fgonzales]

Jason,

I have debian running on a Dell Inspiron 1000 and a Motorola wireless card. I was able to get it running using ndiswrapper and the windows driver that came on the cd. What kind of problems did you run into using ndiswrapper?

fernando

[jakwi]

I tried the ndiswrapper when I was running 2.6.8-2.686, It accepted the driver, but it didn't detect the hardware. Other than that it looked happy. The funny thing is that in Kinfocenter it was detecting and identifying my wireless card.

thanks for the response

jason

[AlexK]

jakwi, with your present card, what does iwconfig return?

[jakwi]

yeager:/home/jakwi# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

yeager:/home/jakwi#

This is the way it always is. I figured I'd throw in the lspci too

yeager:/home/jakwi# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
00:10.0 Communication controller: Agere Systems WinModem 56k (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: D-Link System Inc DFE-690TXD CardBus PC Card (rev 10)
yeager:/home/jakwi#

The last line is my wired ethernet controller. I have both plugged in at present.

thanks for the help,

Jason

[AlexK]

strange, I can't see a wireless card in your lspci output. Is it (wireless) plugged in?

[jakwi]

strange, I can't see a wireless card in your lspci output. Is it (wireless) plugged in?

Yeah, it's plugged in and one led is on. Maybe this is my whole problem. Is there a way to spur it into action? I've tried in in both spots and with the wired ethernet removed. I know the card works as it has no problems under win98.

[AlexK]

does dmesg show anything when the wireless card is plugged in? i.e. boot into linux without card, plug it in, and see what dmesg returns regarding the card.

[jakwi]

I keep trying to post the code, but it says that it's too long. Is there another way to post it? Or I could email it to you as a txt file?

thanks again for the help

Jason