Linksys WPM300N install troubles

[dv82xl]

Linksys WPM300N
ok.....so I despise XP, Ferdora is smart - very smart - but
I'm not a systems programmer - I do not know the difference between a tar and an rpm
is there anywhere I can see - in writing - the exact steps - that I can blindly follow to get my wireless PCI card up and running? I've been searching for days - followed dozens of different 'step by step' instructions - and I get - nowhere - I cannot even run "lspci" or any command at all - it took me a week to figure out what a "terminal" was!
So I'm begging for help - I'd hate to go back to windows - and oh ya - Wine - should be renamed "whine" cause it dies when you point it to the Linksys setup file - I got a big kick out of that!
If there is a book - I'd like that - I'll rtfm no problem - a book for Fedora - and one more thing - I have an AMD 64 Athlon - but Fedora 8 x86 and 7 x86 - all crash and burn - I've settled for 7 i386 - maybe I'm asking too much
( the smart thing about fedora is it "knows" about my sata raid and installed there and runs from there - Windows XP pro messed the bed" - peace

[Jman]

/sbin/lspci or login as root. Figure out the chipset number which will give us some clue as to the model.

[dv82xl]

Thank you for the reply.
It took me a few days to figure out "root" - I think - as an amateur - Linux should issue a better. more realistic message "command not found" is a misdirection - it should say - you must be "root" to issue commands - within
"root" it should issue "command not found" IF that is truly the case : anyway - that will be my first code change
this is the short story :
lspci
00:0d.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43XG (rev 01)

[dv82xl]

[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4329) present
[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2F:28:5D:02
inet addr:192.168.1.101 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:fe28:5d02/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2328 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1820 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2006386 (1.9 MiB) TX bytes:289393 (282.6 KiB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:5554 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5554 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5163260 (4.9 MiB) TX bytes:5163260 (4.9 MiB)

peth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2F:28:5D:02
inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:fe28:5d02/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2328 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1826 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2048290 (1.9 MiB) TX bytes:298275 (291.2 KiB)
Interrupt:17

virbr0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet addr:192.168.122.1 Bcast:192.168.122.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::200:ff:fe00:0/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:6171 (6.0 KiB)

[dv82xl]

ok - got as far as wlan0 appearing in Network Configuration
show as inactive -
get "ndiswrapper devicewlan0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization

what's interesting is that if you esearch all over the internet and take bits and pieces of other peoples posts for different systems - you actually make little tiny dents in your progress

the unfortunate part is that - probably everybody does that - and nobody takes notes!

so the next guy just stumbles along like the last guy

[dv82xl]

I love posting to my own threads -
I think that FC8 is nice - but
I do not think it's ready for non systems programmers
I've tried both Mint and Ubuntu - both are dumb compared to fc8
particularly in respect to disk detection
I think I'll have to go back to Windows
or - dare I say it "buy a Mac"

[dv82xl]

[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4329) present