Wireless Card with Linux
 

I'm going to be installing linux onto my DELL laptop. I was wondering if my integrated wireless card would work with Linux? If so, would it work automatically, or will I have to install something? Any help would be appreciated. I read the Linux thread, and didn't see anything about this particular subject, but if its there, sorry. :)

I've used Linux a bit, but I'm not that experienced with it. I've never tried it on my laptop so I'm not sure how things will turn out.

Depending on the distro and type of wireless card you have, it may work "out of the box".

Ubuntu is *very* good for wireless cards "just working", I've heard. Ubuntu has a live-cd version, so you should be able to give it a go w/o destroying your HD.

You may have issues, though, if the wireless card manufacturer (I'm looking at you, Broadcom) won't release specs to code a driver for. My laptop has a broadcom wireless card (which I believe some Dell's use [I know they also use Intels sometimes]), and I had to use a program called ndis wrapper (or ndis *something*), which takes my Windows drivers for my network card and uses them in Linux. It didn't work 100% (some features, like ad-hoc mode, weren't available), but it did alright.

Others may have more ideas... Good luck!

p.s. could you please edit your original post and change it to "Wireless Network on Linux" or "Linux - Wireless Network - Dell Laptop" or something so people can identify it more easily? please? ;)

I've tried 3 different flavors of Linux and none of them can run correctly. Suse didn't finishi installation, same as Mandrake. KNOPPIX LiveCD did run but didn't recognize my network connection - no Internet.

I suggest you get a few copies of the LiveCDs and try them out before you install.

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

You could also look at the following links:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://linux.dell.com/
http://tuxmobil.org/

Wireless and Linux:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...nux/Tools.html
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/l...mp11-linux.htm
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/...less_linux.htm
http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/

Consider using <a href="http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/">ndiswrapper</a>. This way you can use windows wireless drivers in linux. Maybe you will have some luck with your card.

Thanks for the info guys. I actually did install Ubuntu, and it didn't work straight out of the box. According to the specs of my laptop it says the wireless card is Dell TrueMobile 802.11g wireless. I tried the ndiswrapper, but I'm extremly new to Linux, and I can't really figure out how to install it. :o


Sorry about the title of the thread. After I posted it, I thought I should of made it more detailed, but once I changed it, it doesnt change on the actual thread list. :crazy:

According to http://www.linux-wlan.org, the only 802.11g Dell wifi cards are made by Broadcom. So that's why it wouldn't work out of the box.

to get the truemobile card running under ubuntu, you can try the following:
$apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils unzip

copy the windows driver installer (RXXXXXXX.exe) onto your linux partition

$mkdir tmp
$cd tmp
$unzip RXXXXXXXX.exe

look for a file called bcmwl5a.inf, if there's an AR/ subdirectory, use the one there.

$ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf
$modprobe ndiswrapper

then you should have a wlan0 device that corresponds to your wirless card.

And after you do as sweeze suggests, you will probably have to use iwconfig (read # man iwconfig for info) to set up your Mode, your SSID, your gateway and your encryption key if you use one (passphrases aren't supported yet I think).