Linksys WMP54G v4 (Ralink)

[Dapper Dan]

I just got through installing this card on Slackware 10.2. for the 2.6.13 kernel. I decided to go with it mainly because it uses the Ralink chipset. Ralink has released their code to open source, and are paying serious attention to the Linux community. It's my belief they very much deserve our support. They provide drivers for 'g' and 'b' in pci, usb and pcmcia that are easily built and don't require NdisWrapper.

It was rough going since it was my first attempt with 802.11g, but luckily there is a wealth of information on the net about how to get it configured and running. A couple of links that got me over the hump...

Link 1
Link 2

It's really a pleasure having this kind of speed over 802.11b which is what I've used for years. Now I will attempt to get it going in CentOS.

[WebThingy]

Hi Dapper Dan,

Remember me from the "Convert Me I Dare Ya" post?

Ok, I have this same wireless card, and I just installed Xandros Linux fine, smooth as silk. But I have no internet connection because my Linksys Wifi card, same as yours isn't supported. (Which they told me it was, grr)

So I have been reading tutorials and posts about this ndiswrapper thing, and what you just posted, but I don't understand how to do it as I just got Linux installed and all these articles assume I know where to start.

If anyone would be willing to walk me through it I would be eternally grateful.

[WebThingy]

Extra notes...

I used a flash usb drive to take the ndiswrapper download from my wifes Windows machine and move it over to the Linux box.

I dumped it on the desktop as I have no idea where to put it.

I tried following the instructions to unzip the the folder but when I type in the command line and hit run, nothing happens.

So I moved the folder in the zip file to the desktop.

I have no clue what to do right now. I can't even find anything that shows me my hard drives. Like C: and D: were on Windows. The file manager shows a list of items, including my cd-re and dvd-rw drives, but not my hard drives.

I am sooOOOo lost right now.

[Dapper Dan]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe your distro already has the ralink drivers included. Do a search for:

rt2500.o

...and see if it's there. If so, it should be a simple matter to get you connected.

[WebThingy]

I did a search with find files and folders but came up dry.

I have a file called rt2500.inf on my Linkys disc, will that work? And if so, where do I put it?

Side note: Am I suppossed to be able to see my C and D drives like I would be able to browse them on Windows? Because in the file manager I see everything but them and I'd like to dump some files on I have on the D drive.

[Dapper Dan]

In linux, drives are designated hd. First drive is 'a' second is 'b' and so on. Thus hda,hdb. You likely have only one drive, but more than one partition. So if Windows is on the first partition on your hd, it'd be designated - hda1, the second partition - hda2 and so forth.
To see your partitions, I'm pretty sure qtparted is installed on your distro. Look for it in your menu, or open a terminal...

qtparted

[WebThingy]

qtparted = command not found

I have two seperate hard drives, but I see absolutely no way to see what is on which drive. Again, I'm used to Windows on this, but I'm seriously looking for anyway to see what's on what drive and there is nada. The manual says nothing about it either. I see nothing that says hda or hdb or anything like it.
I'm wondering if maybe I did the install wrong. I used the express install which asked nothing about partioning so I didn't have to figure out which file format to use or do any partioning since I know jack about partitions.

I fell really, really really dumb right now. I need to get this working by tommorrow too or I'm in deep.

[Dapper Dan]

Of course you feel dumb it's your first day... Open up konqueror in your menu and type in the address window /mnt and press enter. Anything there? Try /media and enter. Anything in there? We might have to mount that drive manually which isn't hard.

[WebThingy]

Dan thanks SO much for your help last night in getting an internet connection, I really really appreciate it.

Let me know if you are up to helping me get that second hard drive running, lol

I really have to say, this is the most helpful forum with the most patient people I think I've ever encountered online. It's a bit humbling when you are used to having the answers (I help newbies on web design forums all the time), but you guys have all helped make installing and getting used to Linux so much less intimidating than it was before I found this forum.

Thank you!

Here is a link to what we did to get the internet connection working:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/xan...tml#post331855