Linksys Wireless Card In Linux

Today, David writes:

Hi Matt! I’m a long time Windows guy (16 years) with some Unix experience. I try off and on playing with Linux. I’ve recently been trying to get Linux going on a Dell Latitude C840 laptop with a Linksys PCMCIA wireless card. The card supports WPA in Windows. I’d like to use WPA under Linux on this laptop. Any chances there at this time or is it hopeless? Or is there a card I can buy that will work w/o much work? I am not going to lower my security to use wireless with Linux. I’d like to get it going…along with the ability to play MP3 files and … maybe… DVDs. That would give me something to really play with Linux with. I keep trying but Linux isn’t cooperating :-D

As you have likely gathered by now, you are not in Kansas anymore. And what I mean by this would be that Linux is very different in how it supports hardware, especially with wireless cards. Now, just as it is important to know which version of Windows one is running to help, I’d point out the same with Linux. Each is different. With Linux, there are different distributions that each have different levels of hardware support, despite their efforts to be fairly uniform in this matter.

The big problem is that we have been taught to buy hardware designed for Windows. Then based on our conditioning, we fully believe that it should work just fine with other operating systems. Frankly, this is just not a good plan. Having said this, I largely blame Linux distributions for not doing a better job at spelling this out. The developers are so concerned with trying to get Windows hardware working on the Linux platform, that they forget to mention one very important thing - support the vendors that support your choice in Linux. And to be honest, Linksys is just not one of them.

Because I have no idea which distribution you are using, I can only assume it is Ubuntu. So at this point, I still need to know which chipset you are using with this non-specified wifi card made by Linksys. That, and which distribution of Linux and which release/version number/something. ;)

Getting the information on which distribution is simple, just tell me what you installed. As for the wireless card’s chipset, do this for me. Locate the terminal (Linux command line) from your applications, generally found in Accessories, depending on which distribution. Then cut and paste this into it:

ifconfig

Then use your mouse to copy an paste the output into a text file. Just use something out of the applications menu that works with text to paste it to - remember to keep the terminal window open before pasting it, though.

Now do the same in the terminal with this command:

iwconfig

From here, I will have a better idea of what is going on. If this seems foreign to many of you, it’s the same idea as using ipconfig in a Windows command line. Because nothing Microsoft has ever offered beats the control for releasing and renewing IP addies like the command line.

As for getting DVDs to work, this REALLY depends on which distribution you are using. The long answer can be found here, while the easy answer is to use Linspire or Xandros as your distribution of choice.

Sorry if this was not as much help as you would like, however once you write back with the information requested previously, we can help to get you situated. But as I mentioned previously, if you know Linux is for you, wish to go wirelessly with a notebook, buy pre-installed from either system76 or Dell. Just remember, if there are legal considerations when it comes to running restricted formats. With Windows, these were already paid for with the purchase of the OS. And in the US, there are concerns over IP rights, despite the fact that one can install the ability to watch DVDs and play WMV files fairly easily.

I apologize if parts of this seem overly simple for someone with your Unix experience, but this is also a learning tool for others, so I need to spell everything out clearly based on this. :)

Do you have an Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Simply Mepis, Linspire/Freespire, or PCLinuxOS related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt - Linux Edition!

[tags]Linux, notebooks, wifi, wi-fi[/tags]