I just installed Fedora Core 5 on my XPS M170 tonight.. but I think it's coming right back off if I can't fix this problem shortly.
Well when I check the network devices it is installed and showing up as an ethernet device. If I try to create a wireless connection it fails.. I followed a ton of things off the web from doing yum install iwp2200-firmware .. than it didn't say what to do so I just started screwing around.
So if anybody with an XPS M170 can give me some instructions step by step on setting up this wireless I'd be really happy.
Thanks!
abf
07-28-2006, 12:40 AM
i had the same exact problem on that distro with my atheros wireless. truth is fedora is a horrible ,ungodly HORRIBLE distro.... i recommend giving Ubuntu a test drive.
i only recommend this because ubuntu has a much better success rate...and because i never figured out how to solve that issue myself....at least not for good. is there any particular reason why you're running fedora?
Imperil
07-28-2006, 08:27 AM
Nah I just had the DVD sitting here and really didn't look around at distros. If I install Ubuntu will I get my wireless working off the install or will I still have to screw around?
bigtrouble77
07-28-2006, 08:47 AM
Nah I just had the DVD sitting here and really didn't look around at distros. If I install Ubuntu will I get my wireless working off the install or will I still have to screw around?
Mine worked out of the box, but I have a different card. Just remember linux doesn't support WPA (if it does i don't know how to enable it). I'm sure some people would condemn me, but I just leave encryption off and just use the mac filtering to ensure a perfectly stable connection.
Imperil
07-28-2006, 08:50 AM
I just use WEP anyways so no worries... hopefully it actually works properly and I don't have to screw around.
MrDublin
07-28-2006, 09:27 AM
I have Ubuntu running on my laptop with WPA and it's great. The forums have a lot of information on how to enable it. You need to install WPA Supplicant and use a different Network Manager.
This should cover it. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=125150&highlight=wpa+gnome)
abf
07-28-2006, 11:43 AM
If I install Ubuntu will I get my wireless working off the install or will I still have to screw around?
the success rate is extremely high....although i can't guarantee anything, i am confident that it will work out of the box (for no encryption or wep, like said above you'll need a bit more work for wpa)
MrDublin
07-28-2006, 11:52 AM
Download the cd and boot into the live environment. You will know at that point whether or not it detects and loads the drivers for your wireless card. If your only using WEP, you can just enter the key in the network configuration section and your good to go. I didn't mention in my other post, but I am using the same wireless card you are, so I don't think you'll have a problem.
Imperil
07-29-2006, 10:50 PM
Oh just to update this thread yesterdayI booted of the live CD and it found everything and I just quickly popped in the WEP key and everythin gwas great. When I went to do the actual install it kept dying out with an error not creating the file system. I quickly googled that and I needed to boot the Live CD in graphical safe mode and install from there, and everything went perfectly fine. From there I put in my WEP key, installed the latest nVidia drivers, installed Code::Blocks, and now this system rocks! I wish I would have tried Ubuntu previously, as it is seriously nice with some great support.
Thanks guys.
abf
07-30-2006, 12:11 AM
check out automatix http://www.getautomatix.com its a great little script that will install everything and the kitchen sink on your ubuntu... improves usability 100x
Vincent Vega
07-30-2006, 12:20 AM
I just installed Fedora Core 5 on my XPS M170 tonight.. but I think it's coming right back off if I can't fix this problem shortly.
Well when I check the network devices it is installed and showing up as an ethernet device. If I try to create a wireless connection it fails.. I followed a ton of things off the web from doing yum install iwp2200-firmware .. than it didn't say what to do so I just started screwing around.
So if anybody with an XPS M170 can give me some instructions step by step on setting up this wireless I'd be really happy.
Thanks!
Use ndiswrapper. It's unbelievably simple to get going, and the success rate is astronomical. I scratched my head over madwifi for days trying to get my dwl-g510 running on FC5, and ndiswrapper had it going in 5 minutes. If you have a windows driver set (with .inf), then you have everything you need
build or yum it, then follow the directions (google ndiswrapper, will take you to sourceforge, hit the newbie install page).
then you can do two things at each boot:
modprobe ndiswrapper
dhclient wlan0 (or whatever it winds up naming your device)
the wierd thing is, it doesnt show up in the system-config-network, but I didn't care anyway since you can control everything through i(w|f)config
once you get it figured out, you can add those two lines to your rc.local file, or similar.
finally, don't listen to the trash talkers. they're just quitters