Cant get wireless nic to activate in fedora 8

theelcaminodude · #1 9th March 2008, 04:08 AM

I am pretty new to linux so i dont really know any commands yet. im taking a linux course at francis tuttle but i just started yesterday so that doesnt really help me. My laptop is a Gateway MT3707 that originally had vista on it but i reformatted it with xp and dual boot it with fedora 8. everything works on my xp partition but i cant get my wireless to work on fedora. its been updated and the wired nic works but i dont know how to get the wireless to work. when i go to the network app under administration and look at the hardware it tells me that the wired nic's status is ok but my wireless nic's status is [system]. and whether or not i try to install the hardware then install the device or install the device first (hardware is installed at same time) i still cant get it to work. i've tried the default settings, static ip, added a route, etc., i just cant get it to work.

so if anybody can help me i would greatly appreciate it.

theelcaminodude · #2 9th March 2008, 04:11 AM

oh yeah, i forgot to say that what i mean by wont work is: when i click the activate button in the network app it always freezes. and i mean EVERYTHING. the only thing that works is holding down the power button to turn it off. also for some reason when it freezes the caps lock and scroll lock lights blink on and off repeatedly forever.

MrHappy · #3 9th March 2008, 05:02 AM

Hi theelcaminodude

Welcome to the forum.

I would suggest having a read of http://fedoramobile.org/wireless and the Getting Started page would be a good read.

MrHappy

bbfuller · #4 9th March 2008, 10:47 AM

Hello theelcaminodude

I think the first thing to do is determine just what wireless equipment you have in that laptop.

Try running the command:

Code:

/sbin/lspci

from a terminal window (command line) and post back the parts that relate to network cards.

There should be two, one relating to wireless and one to wired. If you can determine which is which we'll only need the wireless one.

theelcaminodude · #5 9th March 2008, 11:25 PM

sorry i totally forgot to post that. i already know that its a realtek rtl 8185. the command shows the same.

bbfuller · #6 10th March 2008, 12:10 AM

Hello theelcaminodude

I've done a search on the forum and this thread:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...=173476&page=2

seems to describe the most recent experiences with the rtl8185 under linux. Not very hopeful I'm afraid.

Whereas this thread:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...hlight=rtl8185

describes how someone got it to work with ndiswrapper. Note that that person specifies one particular version of the driver for the card. It's not unusual to find that only one specific driver will work.

There's lots of howtos on ndiswrapper around. This is the one I usually follow:

http://www.fedoraguide.info/index.ph..._drivers_howto

Note that the author is talking about his experiences with a particular card. You would have to replace the .inf and .sys files that are talked about there with those in the driver package specified in the second link above.

Also, when the author talks about 'Configure your Network', don't do it that way, use NetworkManager and you may well need to blacklist the 8185 drivers that are already in the kernel.

Post back if you want to talk about any of that.

theelcaminodude · #7 10th March 2008, 10:40 PM

i looked at the second post and one person suggested using the network manager service with it. so i went to the edit screen on the wireless card and i checked the box for it. but when i started the network manager service i got the same hard freeze as when i tryed to activate the wireless nic. so i am assuming that the fact that the network manager doesnt work is a link to the wireless problem and maybe an installation problem.

im thinking i might have to reinstall because thats not the only bug. when i go system>preferences>look and feel>desktop effects , i cant get it to work. it should just turn on but it says that it cant turn them on.

i installed fedora 8 on a classroom pc and the desktop effects worked like they should so i probably need a reinstall.

bbfuller · #8 10th March 2008, 11:11 PM

Hello theelcaminodude

Can't help you with the desktop effects I'm afraid. Don't use them. I do know though that they require a 3D capable graphics driver to be installed.

Only a very few of the built in Linux ones do that. If you were using an ati or nvidia card you would probably need to install the proprietary driver for that type of card from Lovna.

theelcaminodude · #9 10th March 2008, 11:16 PM

i have the infamous ati radeon xpress 200m

its an accursed card that has no ability to play games any higher than that of age of empires. ONLY MOVIES! grrr

theelcaminodude · #10 11th March 2008, 02:31 AM

i did a reinstall and it appeared to me that if it had the right realtek driver it would work. the driver in the kernel version is not rtl8185. i also found out that for some reason if you update the kernel package the network manager service makes the computer freeze up.

so im gona try to find the driver used in the kernal upgrade and transpose it to the earlier version. if that doesnt work ill probably jus take the linux partition off.