xUbuntu and Wireless woes

Simian

Simian

Simian

Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Swindoniantown
Hi Guys..

I just installed a copy of xUbuntu on my old Compaq Presario 705 Laptop (Tried gOS but that wouldn't install), now I'm still bumbling my way through getting everything to work (sound etc..) but I can't for the life of me find out how to install my Wireless PCMCIA card..

Its a 'Safecom SWLCR-1100' and I've found that there is a generic driver that should work for it which I've downloaded (tar.gz file) but I can't for the life of me figure out how to install the driver or even get the laptop/OS to see there's even a wireless card plugged into the laptop..

Any help on how to install/get it working would help.. or even another version of Linux that'll work straight out of the box (I am a Linux n00b) without too much fettling.. :)

Cheers
Sim.
 
tar.gz is an archive file. (tar = Tape ARchive a legacy name from the old tape backup methods, gz= gzip) Inside the tar.gz I would expect there to be some form of README or INSTALL.. if not this could be tricky. Do you have a link to the download. Without knowing what is in the archive it's impossible to advise :)
 
Hmm.. okay. I hate to do this but it needs compiled in. Joy of joys. This is actually fairly easy to achieve :)

Open up a terminal. Not too sure how to do this in Xubuntu, I've never used it, but one of the programs off the 'start button' type thing should be labelled "terminal" or "console" or some derivative of that.

With the command line up navigate to the directory you stored the file in, using the "cd " command just like you'd do with windows, then extract it using the "tar -xvzpf" command, so assuming it's in your users home directory:
Code: 
cd /home/username
tar -xvzpf rtl8180-0.21.tar.gz

That'll create a directory called rtl8180-0.21. We need to install the stuff necessary for compiling, go to the relevant directory then compile and install the code. This is nice and easy to achieve (note, the first command will take some time and needs internet access):
Code: 
sudo apt-get install build-essential
cd rtl8180-0.21
make
sudo make install

That should pretty much do it. "make" tells the compiler to create all the necessary files from the code contained in that directory, based on some instructions in a file called Makefile. "make install" installs the code, again following some instructions from the Makefile. sudo is a command used to execute other commands as root, or super-user. You'll also find in the directory we extracted the tar file into that there is a file called README that contains build instructions too, along with some instructions on how to set up the wireless card, however the utilities that come with Xubuntu should hopefully handle that for you.

Next time you reboot it should hopefully work.
 
Cheers. Dood.. I'll give it a go, but theres one slight problem...

Garp said:
...(note, the first command will take some time and needs internet access):
Code: 
sudo apt-get install build-essential
cd rtl8180-0.21
make
sudo make install
Click to expand...

There's the problem.. without the wireless card the laptop has not internet access.. I'll have to see if I can temporarily hard wire to my router and give it a go from there!...

Cheers
Sim. :)
 
Yeah, that's the tricky bit.
Had no end of hassle with SUSE on my workstation as it didn't like the wireless network card. Needed to use ndiswrapper to try and force it to use the windows drivers for it. Not having 'net access under SuSE made that more than a tad frustrating to deal with. Ubuntu on the other hand recognised it straight out. Oh what Joyful things we suffer due to hardware vendors.
 
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