hello
man
I used Red Hat Linux 9 and a Gateway Solo 5300, but it should be fairly similar no matter what distribution and hardware you use. Make sure that your computer supports CardBus cards, and not just PCMCIA, and that whatever distribution of linux you use has PCMCIA and CardBus support. You will also need kernel-source installed, the same version as your kernel. You will need gcc, make, and various other compiling tools. This howto does not cover the installation of Linux. Making Linux work on your computer is up to you. If you're a beginner I'd suggest Mandrake, RedHat, or Fedora Linux. Assuming your computer is a laptop (It has CardBus, right?) you should check Linux On Laptops for help installing Linux.
Step One: Make sure you can see the card.
Power up your laptop into linux and open a root shell. Insert the Netgear MA521 card. Depending on your laptop, it may or may not beep. Run "lspci", you should see something like:
06:00.0 Ethernet Controller: RealTek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown Device 8180 (rev 20)
If you don't see a line like that (the points of focus are RealTek and 8180). If you don't see that, then something is wrong. Try running "/etc/init.d/pcmcia status". If it says cardmgr is stopped, you'll need to start it and make sure it stays started when it should. run "/etc/init.d/pcmcia start" nad "/etc/init.d/pcmcia status" It should tell you that cardmgr is running. We want pcmcia to run in all runlevels that networking might be running, ther best way to do that is to use chkconfig. Run "chkconfig --level 2345 pcmcia on", then run "chkconfig --list | grep pcmcia", verify that it is "on" in run levels 2, 3, 4, and 5. run "lspci" again and see if you can see the RealTek card. if not, then you need more help than this :).
Step Two: Install kernel module
Download the appropriate source from here. The second block currently contains two versions of the module. One of them is for kernel 2.4.18, the other is for 2.4.20. You will need to be running one of these kernels in order to use this driver. To see what you're running, type "uname -a" ReedHat 9 uses the 2.4.20-8 kernel stock, so that is what this howto will (attempt to) describe. After you've downloaded the appropriate file, unzip the file, cd into the "release" directory, and edit the Makefile. make sure "KERNELRELEASE" is exactly the same as the kernel version returned with "unaume -a". Exit the editor, and run "make clean" followed by "make". That should be it. If it fails, double check KERNELRELEASE and INCLUDEPATH in the Makefile. Run "make clean" and "make" again. If still no love, make sure you've got the kernel source and the correct version of gcc (the gcc version required is listed on the download page, and can be checked by running "gcc --version") In the end, you should end up with a module "rtl8180_24x.o" Move that file to "/lib/modules/2.4.20-8/kernel/drivers/net/" Viola! Module installed. run "insmod rtl8180_24x", followed by "lsmod". Find the module in the left hand column and make sure it is used by "1" or more, assuming you've got the card in the slot (you do, don't you?). Run "rmmod rtl8181_24x" to clean up, because we're going to insmod that again in a minute.
Step Three: Configuration files
Here are the files that must be added/edited to make this card work. First, edit /etc/modules.conf. Add the following line:
alias wlan0 rtl8180_24x
Next, make a new file "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0". NOTE! This is for Red Hat systems! Mandrake, Debian, Susse, etc may use different filenames in different directories, but the contents should be for the most part the same
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=no
ESSID=ANY
CHANNEL=
MODE=Auto
RATE=Auto
You can download the file here. Note that "onboot" is set to "no". EVEN IF YOU WANT THIS INTERFACE UP AT BOOT TIME, LEAVE THIS SET TO "no". This will be started from a seperate script, which is next.
We need a startup script to bring up the interface. This script was created by modifying the wlanup and wlandown scripts that came with the driver. It's fairly long, so I won't post the contents here, but you can download a copy here. Put this in "/etc/init.d/" and run "chmod 755 /etc/init.d/wlan". Use chkconfig to have this start up in whatever runlevels you decide. Keep in mind networking and pcmcia need to be up when this is on. Run "/etc/init.d/wlan start" any time you want to start the service manually.
That should be it. Below are some troubleshooting tips.
1. you may need to bring down eth0 for this to work.
2. by default this will start wireless in "Infrastructure" mode. run "/etc/init.d/wlan" to see how to put it into ad-hoc or ap mode.
3. this is configured to connect to ANY wireless network. adjust the "ESSID" variable in "ifcfg-wlan0" to specify a different network.
4. Finally, if you can't get it to work after following all of hte above, leave a comment here and I will get back to you and try and help you out.
That is all.
dont email me
search on google lots help man
