The horror of wireless Linux - NOT!
Ray Ingles
(from the Windows "partisans" on this forum) that it was with some
curiosity that I embarked upon adding wireless to our house.
The machine is located on the second floor, and running wired Ethernet
there would be quite awkward. It's a P-III/450, 512MB RAM, ~18GB of
disk, etc. Mostly intended for the kids but I also wanted to add some
net access to the upstairs. It was running Ubuntu 5.04 and Windows 98SE.
(In theory I could put XP on it, but there are some older games the kids
like that I can't get running on XP, and besides I'm not convinced XP
would run all that well on a 450MHz machine, half a gig of RAM or not.)
So, 802.11 time. Finally found some hardware - cheap-after-rebate WAP
and NIC. Pulled the wired NIC out (left over from setting it up in the
basement) and dropped in the DLink DWL-G520 (rev B). Uses the Atheros
chipset, supported under Linux by the madwifi project. Fired up Ubuntu,
which is supposed to work with them out of the box, and...
...no joy. No "ath0" device. Walked downstairs and Googled a bit, then
walked upstairs and looked at "dmesg". Yup, HAL status 13; the version
of madwifi in Ubuntu 5.04 was slightly too old to support that
particular hardware revision.
No biggie. I'd intended to bump it up to 5.10 anyway, and I already had
a CD burned. It was *so* hard:
1. Put in CD.
2. Click "yes" when it asked if I wanted add it to the list of package
sources.
3. Click "Mark All Upgrades" in Synaptic.
4. Click "Apply".
5. Answer a couple of questions along the way. (I took the defaults.)
Reboot (new kernel), and there's ath0. Go to "Applications -> System
Tools -> Network Tools", and I can add things like the ESSID, key,
channel, etc. Up and surfing in seconds. Updates are such a breeze with
Ubuntu, just start 'em going, nice fast speeds...
Cool. Now, on to Win98. I go download the drivers, using Linux of
course. (Funny, the website works perfectly with Firefox - but then, I
haven't run into one that didn't.) Wait, I have to figure out which
hardware revision I have, and choose the right drivers. I know I have
the B version (good thing I checked before I put it in the box, eh?) so
I grab the latest drivers, v3.18.
Unzip, then boot into Windows, it finds the card, asks for the drivers,
I point it to the proper directory. It gets going, and then it can't
find a couple of files. No, really, they aren't there, I checked. I have
to cancel, and of course no net when it comes up. I reboot, it tries to
load them up again, this time I try "Skip File" twice, and still no net.
I'm not deliberately trying to screw up Windows. I want to be able to
surf on both, seriously. But right now, only Linux works, and I used the
manufacturer's Windows drivers, which specifically say they support
"Win98":
http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=12&pv=40&sec=0
So, to get wireless working in Linux, I had to do an upgrade that I'd
planned to do anyway. To get wireless working in Windows... well, I'm
*still* not sure.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws." - Charles Montesquieu
M
"Ray Ingles" <sorc...@localhost.localdomain> wrote in message
news:slrndsprga....@localhost.localdomain...
Cool, now I know what I have to do if I want to use wireless on my Kubuntu
Box :-).
I would be curious to know if it was as easy as that if you used a USB
Wireless Network Adapter, or if it would be a completely different ball
game?
Regards,
M
Ray Ingles
> I would be curious to know if it was as easy as that if you used a USB
> Wireless Network Adapter, or if it would be a completely different ball
> game?
The answer is "It depends". Some USB adapters are supported, some
aren't. I didn't have to look too hard to find a supported card, but I
was looking for something PCI. I haven't looked into USB.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"In the 1980s, Bill Gates got the computer manufacturers to pay
him for Windows for each computer manufactured, regardless of
whose software was on it. In the 1870s, John D. Rockefeller got
the railroads to pay him a rebate for every carload of oil they
shipped, regardless of whose oil it was." - rovingeyes
Colin Day
Yep, that's what happened when I went from SuSe 9.2 to SuSe 10.0.
> Cool. Now, on to Win98. I go download the drivers, using Linux of
> course. (Funny, the website works perfectly with Firefox - but then, I
> haven't run into one that didn't.) Wait, I have to figure out which
> hardware revision I have, and choose the right drivers. I know I have
> the B version (good thing I checked before I put it in the box, eh?) so
> I grab the latest drivers, v3.18.
Was that Windows 98 Second Edition? According to my instructions,
it isn't compatible with First Edition. Also, didn't the CD include the
drivers?
>
> Unzip, then boot into Windows, it finds the card, asks for the drivers,
> I point it to the proper directory. It gets going, and then it can't
> find a couple of files. No, really, they aren't there, I checked. I have
> to cancel, and of course no net when it comes up. I reboot, it tries to
> load them up again, this time I try "Skip File" twice, and still no net.
>
> I'm not deliberately trying to screw up Windows. I want to be able to
> surf on both, seriously. But right now, only Linux works, and I used the
> manufacturer's Windows drivers, which specifically say they support
> "Win98":
>
> http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=12&pv=40&sec=0
>
> So, to get wireless working in Linux, I had to do an upgrade that I'd
> planned to do anyway. To get wireless working in Windows... well, I'm
> *still* not sure.
>
I haven't installed it on my XP partition yet. I hope it's not that bad.
Colin Day
Rob Hughes
> Unzip, then boot into Windows, it finds the card, asks for the drivers,
> I point it to the proper directory. It gets going, and then it can't
> find a couple of files. No, really, they aren't there, I checked. I have
> to cancel, and of course no net when it comes up. I reboot, it tries to
> load them up again, this time I try "Skip File" twice, and still no net.
>
98 typically wanted the 98 CD inserted for some files, like the tcp/ip
stack. Doesn't matter if the files are already installed, you have to put
the CD in anyway. You also have to go back and forth between the driver
directory and the CD as it copies various files. You can try pointing it at
the already installed versions of the files, since the bug in 95 that would
cause windows to create a 0 byte file was fixed.
--
Ignorance is a condition. Stupidity is a way of life.
Ray Ingles
> Was that Windows 98 Second Edition? According to my instructions,
> it isn't compatible with First Edition.
Yes, it's 98SE. About the best of the 9X/ME series.
> Also, didn't the CD include the drivers?
Older versions. I haven't tried them yet (no time. Tonight's karate for
the oldest, tomorrow's swimming lessons for the middle, etc.).
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"[T]he Founding Fathers... made certain to guarantee us individual
rights and freedoms. How dare we selfishly lay claim to those
liberties... when our nation is in crisis?"
http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4026
Ray Ingles
> Ray Ingles wrote:
>
>> Unzip, then boot into Windows, it finds the card, asks for the drivers,
>> I point it to the proper directory. It gets going, and then it can't
>> find a couple of files.
>
> stack. Doesn't matter if the files are already installed, you have to put
> the CD in anyway.
No, these weren't the files it was asking for. Windows does ask for its
own files, yes, but I copied all the .CAB files off the install CD and
put them in a directory on the hard disk. I pointed Windows at that
directory and it was content.
Well, most of the time. About half the time it remembers that the
source of its .CABs is on-disk, and then about half the time it asks for
them off the CD again. I patiently browse back to the directory and it
remembers that. For a while.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
In economics, conservatives say that complex organization can arise
without central planning. And then many of the same people turn around
and say that can't happen in biology (so-called "intelligent design").