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Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem to Black Box

Premium Member

to Black Box

Re: Total novice looking for a short basic Linux user manual

Exactly how do we locate the central depository for any give distro and exactly how do we - for lack of better terminology at this early stage - install drivers so my usb wireless Cisco AE2500 adapter will work with a given distro?

That's something that has me stumped.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by Gem:

Exactly how do we locate the central depository for any give distro and exactly how do we - for lack of better terminology at this early stage - install drivers so my usb wireless Cisco AE2500 adapter will work with a given distro?

That's something that has me stumped.

a quick google of cisco AE2500 linux lead to a page discribing using ndiswrapper to load the windows drivers to enable it. This, as they say, is not beginner territory.

Perhaps a better route (given the very low cost of USB wifi adapters) would be to go at it from the other direction. Buy one that is known to work with Linux.

For example, »www.cyberciti.biz/tips/l ··· ist.html

Black Box
join:2002-12-21

Black Box to Gem

Member

to Gem
said by Gem:

Exactly how do we locate the central depository for any give distro and exactly how do we - for lack of better terminology at this early stage - install drivers so my usb wireless Cisco AE2500 adapter will work with a given distro?

It varies across the distributions. I am not familiar with your PCLinux but it looks like it is using Synaptic. Look for it in the menus. It can be in System, Tools, Configuration or something similar.

I agree with JohnInSJ See Profile, you may be better off with a new adapter. But if you are willing to learn, using ndiswrapper is not too complicated. Google "howto ndiswrapper" and read a couple of them. It may not work on the first try though.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

1 edit

Gem

Premium Member

Thank you both, those both good ideas. I'll pursue the recommendations. ;>)
Gem

Gem

Premium Member

Okay, picked up an Asus N-13 wireless adapter. Tested it on a Windows build to be sure it works. It does.

Tried it on the PCLinuxOS Mini ver. 13.x distro. That mini distro doesn't appear to have native support for the Asus N-13 (although it does support a Realtek wireless device in case anyone is interested in that distro).

Tried on the full version of PCLinux Live CD distro, but the download of that may be corrupted. The first time it booted up, it loaded to a desktop but the mouse was not functional. The second boot attempt hung midway through loading.

Will look for other "Full" distros to see if any of those have native support for a Cisco AE2500 or Asus N13 wireless adapter.

If no luck in that search I'll pursue the NDIS wrapper solution to see if I can follow the linked instructions on how to do that.

More later.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

Ubuntu as a distro will probably give you the widest possible hardware support for "plug and play" - but it will also not be very Windows like in UI. Still, as a desktop linux distro it's very capable.