Newb Help: Fedora on Laptops

melchiorus · #1 10th October 2004, 07:31 PM

I'm somewhat new to unix and linux as a whole, and definately new to these forums. I got a laptop from Toshiba a few weeks ago and it came with Windows, not like I had a choice. I tried running some games on it, since Windows seems to be more a gaming OS then anything, but they were all too slow. I decided to install linux on my laptop instead of Windows since I can then use it for development of my scripts and whatnot.

I have 3 connection methods on my laptop: ethernet lan, 56k modem, and wireless wifi 802.11g Intel PRO/2200BG wifi, all of them built in. When I just now installed it, it detected my ehternet just fine, but the other two it didn't find. I just pressed next because I imagined I could add them later on after getting it installed. This is mainly where I need help.

How can I install my wireless card and modem card both? I've downloaded the official Intel drivers, but since I'm a complete newb to linux, I have no idea how to install it all. Can anyone help me out here in some simple terms, or maybe post a link to a tutorial of some sort? I'd greatly appreciate it, and I hope I can call this forum one of my new hangouts for Linux.

Edit: Not a way to start out, posted in wrong forum. >_< I didn't see the laptops section, sorry.

fjleal · #2 10th October 2004, 10:53 PM

Welcome!
You can try this link in the faqs: http://www.fedorafaq.org/#wirelessanaconda

If your card isn't supported, you can also use your windows NDIS driver with ndiswrapper.

melchiorus · #3 10th October 2004, 11:53 PM

Mmk, thanks, I'll try installing ndis wrapper soon. The only problem now is that my up2date program for Fedora doesn't seem to work. Whenever I run it, it likes to time out on either getting the info header, or checkingthe package dependencies or whenever it wants to actually install the updates.

I do everything according to the on screen instructions, I'm not sure what's wrong. Any ideas?

07dcolem · #4 11th October 2004, 12:14 AM

I would reccommend using yum instead of up2date.....just go to your terminal, then type "yum update" without the quotes, and sometimes it takes a long time, just let it do it's thing and you're all set.

melchiorus · #5 11th October 2004, 12:45 AM

Nice, thanks very much for all the help.

However, whenever I run "yum update" in the terminal, it says "Error - /var/cache/yum/base/header.info cannot be found". I can imagine why I guess. Where can I get the header file and/or automate this process?

ooj100 · #6 11th October 2004, 12:56 AM

Hi Melchiorus,

For the inbuilt 2200 wifi, try http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/. I have an Intel 2100 wireless card and never been able to get it working under FC2.. Still trying though

Good luck!

/oj

melchiorus · #7 11th October 2004, 02:35 AM

Thanks, gonna look into this file.

As for the Intel 2100, I found this and was gonna use it for my 2200 but just noticed it's actually got 2100. Good luck!

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5690

As far as the ndiswrapper thing goes, I keep getting a..

Warning: Cannot locate w22n5msg.dll

...message whenever I try installing the driver. Then, when I go to "modprobe ndiswrapper" it says "FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found." If you have any ideas on this, it'd be appreciated. If not, how do I uninstall this thing after using make install?

crackers · #8 11th October 2004, 03:05 AM

As "root" and in the same directory where you entered make install, type make uninstall. Most source packages will also clean up after themselves.

melchiorus · #9 11th October 2004, 03:28 AM

I think I tried the "make uninstall" thing and it gave me a "no uninstall file" or something of that sort.

Anyway, if anyone can help me figure out how to install my wireless card, I'll be very happy. I've spent the last 3 hours trying to get the ipw2200 drivers to work and got up to the point where it tried to find my IP from the DHCP server of my wireless hub, but it failed of course. I'm not sure if it's linux issues or hardware or something else, probably linux because I'm a newb and don't know what I'm doing.

Thanks for all the help so far...

crackers · #10 11th October 2004, 04:52 AM

Try turning off all security on your WAP and broadcast the SSID and see if you can connect then. You might be having WEP issues. Once you can connect, lock down your WAP by using the MAC address option.

AwPhuch · #11 12th October 2004, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by melchiorus

Nice, thanks very much for all the help.

However, whenever I run "yum update" in the terminal, it says "Error - /var/cache/yum/base/header.info cannot be found". I can imagine why I guess. Where can I get the header file and/or automate this process?

It seems your /etc/yum.conf is borked

Mine looks like this

Code:

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1
retries=20

[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/

[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/

#[updates-testing]
#name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Unreleased Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/testing/$releasever/$basearch/

#[development]
#name=Fedora Core $releasever - Development Tree
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/$basearch/

I did change from the original to a mirror site since it was soooooooo slow

Hope that helps

Brian
AwPhuch