Installing Netgear WAB501 wireless card on Mqandrake 10.1

**rajamuk@hotmail.com** · 12-01-2004

Hi,

I've been trying to install a Netgear WAB501 wireless card on my dualboot laptop (WinXP Pro/Mandrake 10.1). The card connects fine when I'm on WinXP.

On the linux side, The Mandrake Control Center (Harddrak) sees the card but I can't connect to my wireless router with it. Any suggestions on what I need to do? Thanks.

**lakerdonald** · 12-01-2004

open up a terminal and type:

Code:

su -
ifconfig eth0 up
dhclient eth0

replacing eth0 with the card name (i.e. wlan0, eth1, etc)

**rajamuk@hotmail.com** · 12-01-2004

Thanks Donald - one more silly question - how do I find out the name of the wireless card? I tried eth1, ath0, wlan0 etc. and they don't work.

**lakerdonald** · 12-01-2004

type

Code:

ifconfig -a

**rajamuk@hotmail.com** · 12-01-2004

OK, typed ifconfig -a and got the folowing output (section A):

So which one is my wireless card? The hardware details (from the Mndrakelinux Control Center window is shown is section B below:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION A

[root@localhost root]# ifconfig -a

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:47:B5:83:F5
inet addr:192.168.0.5 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::203:47ff:feb5:83f5/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2794 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1753570 (1.6 Mb) TX bytes:517252 (505.1 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xf000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:6430 (6.2 Kb) TX bytes:6430 (6.2 Kb)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION B

Identification
Vendor: ‎Atheros Communications Inc.
Description: ‎AR5211 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Wireless Adapter
Media class: ‎NETWORK_ETHERNET
Connection
Bus: ‎PCI
Bus PCI #: ‎6
PCI device #: ‎0
PCI function #: ‎0
Vendor ID: ‎5772
Device ID: ‎18
Sub vendor ID: ‎4997
Sub device ID: ‎17408
Misc
Module: ‎ath_pci

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**lakerdonald** · 12-01-2004

unless you have another nic in there, it looks like eth0 is your wireless

**rajamuk@hotmail.com** · 12-02-2004

Donald,

Sorry, I had to go out for a few hours and just got back. The eth0, I thought, was the ethernet card which is specned. below:

Identification
Vendor: ‎Intel Corp.
Description: ‎EtherExpress PRO/100 SP Mobile Combo Adapter
Media class: ‎NETWORK_ETHERNET
Connection
Bus: ‎PCI
Bus PCI #: ‎0
PCI device #: ‎3
PCI function #: ‎0
Vendor ID: ‎32902
Device ID: ‎4649
Sub vendor ID: ‎32902
Sub device ID: ‎8709
Misc
Module: ‎eepro100
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Any thoughts on what the wireless card would be called? How could I find that out?

**jeremy1701** · 12-02-2004

Check out the cardctl command.

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/man/cardctl.8.html

Jeremy

**copycon** · 12-02-2004

try booting with the card in place then do

Code:

ifdown eth0
ifdown eth1
ifup eth1

these are seperate commands and you should get some kind of response from each one
and see what happens

**rajamuk@hotmail.com** · 12-02-2004

Hi copycon,

Followed your advice, rebooted, typed the commands you suggested and got the following results:

ifdown eth0 - took down my wired etehrnet connection.

ifdown eth1 - didn't do anything, suggested that usage is ifdown <devicename>, which I presume implies Linux doesn't see a device named eth1.

ifup eth0 - got the ethernet connection running again.

I am stumped on how to find the devicename for the pcmcia wireless card. I've posted the details of the Harddrak info on the card previously (SECTION B of post no.4) . Can you please take a look and see if you can figure out the device namke? Thanks in advance.

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