Help with wireless card and Slack 10.2

[ganooch]

Here is the rundown:

I am a VERY new Linux user.

I have a HP Pavillion zd8205 laptop with a Broadcom BCM94306 802.11g card (internal).

I am running Slackware 10.2 with the 2.6.13 kernel.

I have been reading on the internet for 3 hours now looking for a basic explaination of how to configure this card that does not assume an expert level of Linux proficiency.

I don't know how to compile a module or even load one from the net.

I have my USB flash drive configured so I can load a module from the internet.

I am not looking for a step-by-step walkthrough, I would just appreciate a link to a basic tutorial that is well written.

If I am lucky enough to have this read by someone with a similar hardware setup, I would really like to know how you got this working.


Thank you all for your time.


--ganooch

[kern]

if you had an intel chipset like in my hp laptop its as simple as downloading the firmware and putting it in the right place. the driver is supported in the kernel

the driver for your hardware is probably supported in the 2.6 kernel too, you might have to use 'ndiswrapper' to wrap a binary windows driver to get it working if no native driver exists though.

after that you'd want to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf to setup your WEP key and SSID et cetera. remember the iwconfig part is done before you have an interface to configure an ip with using ifconfig. it may sound difficult but its a few pointers at least. I'll check about for a compatible driver in the kernel supplied modules.

[ganooch]

if you had an intel chipset like in my hp laptop its as simple as downloading the firmware and putting it in the right place. the driver is supported in the kernel

Where is the right place? That is where I am lost.

[kern]

/lib/firmware

place your firmware image there, thats all i do with my intel wifi setup

(edit: as well as loading the correct driver module of course)

[ganooch]

It looks like ndiswrapper is not supported on the 2.6.13 kernel. I went to 2.6.17 and it seems that after using ndiswrapper, the wireless card is recognized as eth0. Now to get home from work anfd attempt to access my wireless network <<fingers crossed>>.

[kern]

if it comes up as eth0 all you need to do is configure /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf for your wireless details, then configure the device as a normal ethernet interface using ifconfig, or /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

[ganooch]

It is not working! A couple of points:

1) The essid of my network is 2 words with a space. I inputted it like this:
iwconfig eth0 essid wireless\ net
2) I also ran these commands:
iwconfig eth0 key xxxxxxxx
iwconfig eth0 key on
iwconfig eth0 ap any
dhcpcd eth0

3) Afterward, for good measure, I even add:
/etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart

I am at a loss. What am I missing? I compiled all of the above commands into a script with the exception of /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart. That I run after the script after I realize that I can't connect.

What do I need to configure under ifconfig? All ifconfig (no parameters) lists is lo. I even shut this down with:
ifconfig lo down

I am open to any suggestions and thanks for the help, kern.

--ganooch

[kern]

wireless-tools has ONLY JUST been patched to support ESSID's with a space in. like literally, it was today it was patched.

you can either upgrade to current, which will have the fix, or download that package by itself I guess, but I wouldn't really recommend installing 11.0 packages on 10.2 often, you can either change your WiFi points SSID to one with no space for now, or grab that package with the fix.

[ganooch]

wireless-tools has ONLY JUST been patched to support ESSID's with a space in. like literally, it was today it was patched.

you can either upgrade to current, which will have the fix, or download that package by itself I guess, but I wouldn't really recommend installing 11.0 packages on 10.2 often, you can either change your WiFi points SSID to one with no space for now, or grab that package with the fix.

Wow, I had no clue. I think that changing the essid would be the best bet, although it sucks that I now need to change it in 4 different Windows computers on the network (not my Windows computers). Where did you get 11.0? Is it worth the upgrade?

[kern]

11.0 is just slackware-current , anyone with a bit of savvy can upgrade to it

I wouldn't say theres much point though, unless you have a case like yours