Linux Linksys WMP54G Wireless g PCI in Linux?

Discussion in 'Software' started by OneSeventeen, 24 Feb 2005.

  1. OneSeventeen

    OneSeventeen Oooh Shiny!

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    I'm trying to figure out how to get my WMP54G to work with linux. After trying for a few hours with SuSE (that claimed to cover all the major WiFi brands) I finally got fed up and installed Fedora Core 3 since I heard some people got this to work with it.

    I must admit I'm new enought to FC to have no idea how to install hardware that isn't automagically detected. (I'd rather install drivers in a gui than command line... but then again I'm also trying to replace WinXP)

    Has anyone here had luck with this card?

    I'm willing to switch distros to get this thing working, because without it, I don't have the internet, and without the internet I have very little reason to turn on my computer =P

    I could have sworn I heard people say linksys had gotten friendly about releasing code for developers to make open source drivers...
     
  2. trigger

    trigger Procrastinator

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    Not had any experience with this card (or these drivers) personally, but from what I can see you will need the ndiswrapper driver, which essentially uses the Windows drivers.

    There is a guide for setting it up, but it doesn't look very easy!

    Good luck!
     
  3. OneSeventeen

    OneSeventeen Oooh Shiny!

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    Yeah, definitely not easy.

    I've found that before, and as I'm pretty new to linux, it is very difficult when part of the instructions are recompiling the kernel...

    For now I'm sticking with WinXP Pro at home, and I've got a little slackware laptop here at work (currently running counterstrike source dedicated server), and maybe someday if they make a better wifi app for linux I'll dual boot/switch.

    I'm actually prepping myself now by only using software that works in both windows and linux. (Firefox, Thunderbird, Scite, GIMP, Blender, etc.)
     
  4. trigger

    trigger Procrastinator

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    It's just because 11G is quite recent, and the chip makers aren't releasing the code for the drivers. I expect there are a bunch of people busily hacking away at them to get a working driver for linux which will (hopefully) be included in the Kernel and thus be super easy to use.

    Unfortunately I expect that by then we will all be looking to get our 11N cards working!!
     
  5. tk421

    tk421 Idiot.

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    ndiswrapper is actually quite easy if you have any command line experiance at all. i had to use it to make my wpc11 v.4 (linksys b pc card) work with mandrake 10.0 on my craptop. after a couple tries, i got it working every time.
     
  6. simon w

    simon w What's a Dremel?

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  7. OneSeventeen

    OneSeventeen Oooh Shiny!

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    Nice!
    I might have to try that.

    I've been scared to install slackware because of the horror stories of how difficult it is to install (and their website just had a lot of stuff about boot floppys?), but when I burned an ISO and tried it out, I got it to work on a laptop within 30 min!

    So now that I'm slightly more comfortable with slackware, I think I'm going to have to stick with it. It seems very basic, I don't have to worry about recompiling an RPM, because there are no RPMs :p

    We'll see. Thanks again for the link, I can't believe I never came across that!
     
  8. Pygo

    Pygo Rick Relixed

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    hey. same link I used to get wifi working on my laptop.
    though getting the card to connect to an ap takes a few minutes.

    and HURRAY for slackware :clap: (sorry, I just use slackware for most of my stuff. :worried:)
     
  9. OneSeventeen

    OneSeventeen Oooh Shiny!

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    Has anyone had experience using this method and adding WEP encryption and a shared key?
     
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