Noob ? [Installing NIC drivers]

[#CRob]

installing drivers on 10.1 official
come on guys i need to know
how to install an nic driver on my mandrake linux 10.1
i have a dlink driver and i have all the right files i just don't know how to do it.

god i thought the whole point of Open Source Software was so that more people know how it works and know how to fix it.

thx

[Seren]

In what form do you have the files? Whenever I've had to install NIC drivers, the files have contained a file named INSTALL or README that explains the process. Have you found such a file yet? There can be some differences in installation between the different device drivers and you need to know the specifics for yours.

If you aren't able to find installation information among the files that you have, I'd try looking up the website of the company that made your NIC card for that information. They might also might have an newer version of the driver.

If they have you install the drivers from source files rather than from an RPM, the procedure might look something like this (you'd run these commands in this order):
./configure
make
make install

Or maybe not. But one thing that you might have to do is make sure the source files for your kernel are installed also, because the driver files may require these for installation. The RPM for them might have a name like this, depending on the version of your kernel:
kernel-source-2.6-2.6.11-12mdk.i586.rpm

You should be able to find these on any Mandrake update mirror site. I found the abovementioned file at
ftp://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/dist...86/media/main/

My personal opinion is that you should always have kernel source files installed anyway, because you never know when you might need them.

[techieMoe]

god i thought the whole point of Open Source Software was so that more people know how it works and know how to fix it.

In the case of software, yes. However there's an X factor you're missing when talking about hardware drivers. Unless the manufacturer of a device (for instance Broadcom, who makes wireless chipsets) releases specifications for their hardware that would allow developers to make open-source drivers, there is really nothing short of brute-force reverse engineering that can make a driver materialize.

[#CRob]

can ne1 point me into a direction of a nic that supports linux so i can do this?