Mandriva Wireless Connection

[Ace_Well]

Hi, I have installed mandriva on 2 diffrent computers before, but then I have used a normal internet cable connection, but now I'm thinking of installing mandriva on a 3rd computer with a wireless connection.

* Will the computer find the wireless card
straight away so I can use the internet?

* If that's not the case then how do I do it?

* Can I try the wireless internet connection using the "live" cd?
so I know if I should install it or not

I'm a huge mandriva fan, But this time I'm going to install it on my grandfathers computer, so he would get f*@ng mad if I scrued this up.

[Giles]

The answer to the first two questions will depend on the chipset used in the wireless card. If you don't know what that is, then you probably would do well to go in with a live cd, and run

lspci

If you then look for a line mentioning network or wireless, that should have the details of your chipset. For example when I run that command on my computer I get the output:

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)
00:07.0 ISA 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)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 06)
00:0d.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-7850 (rev 01)
00:0e.0 Communication controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division WinModem
00:10.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3890 [Prism GT/Prism Duette]/ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV4 [RIVA TNT] (rev 04)

And the line in bold is the important one, telling me I have a Prism chipset.

Hope this helps
Giles

[ModularMike4.6L]

The answer to the first two questions will depend on the chipset used in the wireless card. If you don't know what that is, then you probably would do well to go in with a live cd, and run

lspci

If you then look for a line mentioning network or wireless, that should have the details of your chipset. For example when I run that command on my computer I get the output:

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)
00:07.0 ISA 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)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 06)
00:0d.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-7850 (rev 01)
00:0e.0 Communication controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division WinModem
00:10.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3890 [Prism GT/Prism Duette]/ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV4 [RIVA TNT] (rev 04)

And the line in bold is the important one, telling me I have a Prism chipset.

Hope this helps
Giles

Are you saying that you need a prism chipset to use wireless or is that the only one that the computer recognizes or what? Because I am going to hunt for a network card soon and would like one to work on my Mandriva Box.

[valemon]

A lot of wireless cards are supported by the kernel, so they will work out of the box. If not you will have to use ndiswrapper (use Windows drivers) or madwifi. Anyway, by 95% you will get it working. Check here for wireless compatibility with linux

[Giles]

Are you saying that you need a prism chipset to use wireless or is that the only one that the computer recognizes or what?

No, I just included that as an example - it happens that the card I'm using has a Prism chipset, but it could just as well have been atheros, broadcom, ralink etc etc etc

I was working on the basis that you already had a wireless network card that you were trying to make work, and this was the first stage of getting it going. Apologies if I misunderstood you.

And as I understand it, Valemon isn't quite right in saying that if the card isn't supported in the kernel you have to use madwifi or ndiswrapper. NDISwrapper is generally the last resort, if your card doesn't "Just Work", and you cant find a linux driver for it - Madwifi is one such driver, that works for cards with atheros chipsets, but there are a number of others available for different chipsets.

Hope that makes things clearer
Giles