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Best distro for Gateway 7508GX

post #1 of 21
11/7/05 at 10:02pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I'm looking for the best linux distro for my 7508GX. So far I have tried Ubuntu and Knoppix live CDs but they didn't detect either of my NICs (wifi and wired).

I am sure I can find the drivers, but I am just posting to see if anyone has installed a distro on this model and had every driver installed automatically.

Thanks in advance
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post #2 of 21
11/7/05 at 10:17pm
what are your nics? (make/model)
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post #3 of 21
11/7/05 at 11:26pm
Thread Starter 
Per device manager,

Wifi - Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter
Wired - Marvell Yukon 88E8036 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
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post #4 of 21
11/7/05 at 11:40pm
ok. wired might be problematic. PCI-E wired aren't well supported. As for your wifi. Well, sorry but no linux distro will really support that out of the box. Broadcom has NO NATIVE LINUX DRIVERS! Therefore you'll have to use ndiswrapper to get it going. Don't worry, its not too bad to get ndiswrapper going.
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post #5 of 21
11/8/05 at 8:08am
Thread Starter 
Well, I tried Breezy Badget last night and it picked up my PCI-E card... SO it looks like I will be installing Ubuntu then playing with the wireless later.

Thanks!
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post #6 of 21
11/8/05 at 8:10pm
ubuntu is not a bad pick. i am using Breezy as my main (and ONLY) OS for the 2nd week running.
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post #7 of 21
1/29/06 at 10:55am
Thread Starter 

having trouble with interface

Hi guys...

Sorry to bring back an old thread... but I've been playing with different distros all weekend. It seems I can't get any distro set up to completely see my wireless.

So far, with Ubuntu, I can't even get wlan0 listed with ndiswrapper. I've done all the steps and when I type "iwconfig", it's not shown. It's also not shown as a device under the network administration window.

I have been able to actually see my wireless card in Mandriva 2006 with ndiswrapper, and it can see my network, but I can't actually connect to my AP. When I bring up the network monitor and click "connect", it says unable to contact daemon. Also, is there any way to enable the radio with the actual radio button on my laptop? (F + F2)

This is killing me... I won't actually use linux until its 100% functional on the laptop.

Thanks guys
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post #8 of 21
1/30/06 at 1:42am
Did you modprobe ndiswrapper?

In as far as enabling the radio with the button, yes it is possible, but would require a bit of scripting. Essentially what you would be doing is mapping that combination of keys to a script that takes your wireless card down and removes the module(ndiswrapper) or restarts it if it is already down.

Seablade
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post #9 of 21
1/31/06 at 11:16pm
Thread Starter 
I've done modprobe ndiswrapper - it seems when I use my radio button to turn my wireless on, the light blinks instead of staying on, like its trying to bring up the card but can't.
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post #10 of 21
1/31/06 at 11:34pm
i dont like ndiswarpper under ubuntu.

i must use ndiswrapper (even though i ahve an atheros card) because i had to remove restricted-modules package so that i could install the latest ATI drivers. the connection is not very stable, so in the meantime i am using my prism2 pcmcia card.
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post #11 of 21
2/7/06 at 8:22am
Thread Starter 
Looks like I finally got my wireless working under Mandriva 2006 and ndiswrapper. Unfortunately I can only connect to my network using WEP. I would like to use WPA if possible, and the supplicant is installed, it just doesn't connect when I configure it. Any tips?
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post #12 of 21
2/7/06 at 9:20am
what was wrong with ubuntu? couldn't figure out how to work ndiswrapper?

anyway... ugh. no clue, don't use wpa
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post #13 of 21
2/7/06 at 10:35pm
Thread Starter 
With Ubuntu, after installing ndiswrapper, I had no wlan0 interface, that is, no new interfaces available. Rather than screw with it, I went with Mandrake because I've had the most luck with it. I'll probably end up trying SUSE now that I know what I'm doing...
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post #14 of 21
2/7/06 at 11:00pm
Heh a little late for me to realise this, but there is work on a native Broadcom driver being done actually, it is still in alpha stages really, but apparently it works good enough to support the airport extreme cards in macs.

Seablade
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post #15 of 21
2/7/06 at 11:01pm
It is not manufacturer supported, it is being reverse engineered so of course it takes a while

Seablade
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post #16 of 21
2/7/06 at 11:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by playbackreks
With Ubuntu, after installing ndiswrapper, I had no wlan0 interface, that is, no new interfaces available. Rather than screw with it, I went with Mandrake because I've had the most luck with it. I'll probably end up trying SUSE now that I know what I'm doing...

did you create a module

ndiswrapper -m i believe after you instaleld the driver and it listed it and said that "hardware found" once you got hte module to go only then can you ifconfig wlan0 up
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post #17 of 21
2/8/06 at 8:32am
Thread Starter 
I modprobed it, did ndiswrapper -m after it said hardware present, and still no wlan0 interface
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post #18 of 21
2/8/06 at 9:28am
word up. that ususally did the trick.
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post #19 of 21
2/8/06 at 11:31am
Ok hate to do this, and chances are you probably did it, but just making sure...

You did run 'ifconfig wlan0 up' right?

Again just covering all the bases, as I said you probably already did it

Seablade
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post #20 of 21
2/8/06 at 10:46pm
Thread Starter 
If "ifup wlan0" is the same as "ifconfig wlan0 up"... then yes
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