USB wireless network cards supported in Ubuntu 6.10?

Question

:With the dawn of windoze vista and thought of it "reporting home" and generally keeping tabs on me has meant I am having a play with the ubuntu 6.10 OS, with view to migrating all my machines to it in the future. (prolly when xp support stops) However on my laptop I cannot get the my usb wireless card (belkin f5d7050 on rt73 chip set) to work. Having tried using the ndiswrapper tool, and various other (often contradicting) methods I found in the ububntu/linux forums I still have no joy. Can someone recommend a tutorial (for a real ubuntu dummy n00b) which may get it working? The thought occurs to me to buy a new usb wireless adaptor which is natively supported in ubuntu 6.10. Can someone recommend such a device? Many tnx

ok, i have tried the usual google and forums route. One of the problem I am having is they give conflicting advise, and some which seem like they might work are not n00b friendly... so this renders them useless.

If in the terminal ndiswrapper -l command shows drivers are installed and hardware present. For there there are lots of different ways quoted to get them working, no of which allow me to connect to my router. In all cases going to networking shows a device for wlan0, when i hit enable a progress bar comes up, but when it finishes there is no connection. If i click on the icon in the upper tool bar (gnome bar? by the clock) then it shows wlan0 status as idle.


I have played with my router, trying without any encryption whatsoever, wep and wpa...

Answer 1

I had the same problem, here's what I did.

Install Ubuntu/run the Live CD/DVD

Scan the PCI bus, and get the name of the device (mines a texas instruments chip, but comes out as ACX 111 or something)

Type that into a google search along with "linux" and grab the .tar files

This should get you on your way

Answer 2

Post it to the Forums. If the ndiswrapper fails, maybe a one that is already supported would be the way. In Linux it is better to fix/hack the OS so that it works with the hardware. Try to assemble one in Binary Code or use the Xorg Config. I used the fglrx to get around a prop driver from ATI. That is also highly suggested, if the manufacturer does not provide open source compatibility or a Linux Driver , email them, call them and ask . be polite, don't spam or flame, just ask. Since Microsoft is owning a Linux Distro now, (not free) ask them to help also, they are in the support game now. They bought it, they should support it.
That chipset thing is/was being a mess, Intel wrote all that junk for XP,Vista, a win98,DOS,Linux or any other number of OSs are a pain to get stuff working.

Answer 3

Which forums have you asked in, and how long did you give them to respond?

I, personally, favour "ubuntuforums" myself, and while most questions are answered within days, don't forget to use the forum's search engine!

Keep looking for tutorials that help you set up your wireless - just reading them and going through them teaches you stuff you'll use later.

Play with your AP's settings - especially the "open key" and "shared key" settings, and the wep / wpa (encryption) settings.

Ubuntu's worth the time... but if you find yourself spending more time trying to get your wireless to work than you're comfortable with, look over the list of Ubuntu-friendly ones.

Google is your friend.

Answer 4

There is a company called Linuxant that does drivers for many Wireless devices. They list your Wireless card as being partially supported. The full version costs $19.95US but they do give a 30 day trial so you can make sure your card works. I have used them for other stuff and found that they have good support (US based and not 24X7 but they are responsive). The install instructions are easy to follow and when done your card should work.
As far as finding a wireless card that can be natively supported, due to the reluctance of the hardware manufactureres to write drivers for linux they are hard to find...
John

Answer 5

both paintings nicely. notwithstanding if an issue occurs, a PCI card will be extra ordinary to troubleshoot. finally USB will replace the PCI buss thoroughly yet this remains many years off and has a techniques to bypass to in the previous the insects are out.