Feisty + Wireless PC Card

[Derek Broughton]

K Theodor wrote:

> -
> I have a NETGEAR Wireless PC Card WPN511 which I want to use on my
> 7.04-installed laptop. The aim is to get Feisty to utilise my wireless
> home network (e.g., go on line wirelessly) via the NETGEAR Wireless PC
> Card.
> 
> The first time I put in the Wireless PC Card, I half-expected Feisty would
> automatically recognise the wireless connexion, as Feisty had previously
> recognised my NETGEAR (wired) modem router without any config. on my part.

Not surprising.  A huge number of wired routers have linux drivers.  They
also don't seem to usually require firmware updates.

> So, how do I get the NETGEAR Wireless PC Card WPN511 to work with Feisty?

Find out what chipset it uses (a model name is pretty much useless, as NIC
manufacturers pretty commonly sell multiple devices under the same model
name using different hardware).
  
lspci will give you a good clue.  

So mine shows, in the last two rows:

03:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network
Connection (rev 05)
04:00.0 Network controller: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless
Interface

Then google for those devices (along with "linux"), and you would find that
an Intel 2200 uses the native linux ipw2200 drivers, and the TI ACX111 may
use a native driver or ndiswrapper.  If yours uses a native driver, it may
still need firmware.  If it uses ndiswrapper, you need the driver files
from the Windows install disk that you would have got with the NIC.

> And one last thing: does Feisty support WPA2 Personal encryption for the
> wireless network? I know for sure that the NETGEAR Wireless PC Card
> supports WPA2 encryption, because I already use this NETGEAR Wireless PC
> Card on Windows XP.

I believe so, but I wouldn't really know :-)
-- 
derek