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Gentoo on Acer 5672 project

post #1 of 16
4/8/06 at 2:34pm
Thread Starter 
I'm starting to attempt to install gentoo on my new acer . Planning to install a stage 3 first, and then go back and recompile everything /w gcc 4.1 and glibc 2.3.9. should be fun, lol.

I've run into my first problem though. Gentoo doesn't recognize my wifi card. This is the first time i'm attempting to set wifi up in linux (this being my first laptop), so i'm gonna need all the help i can get on this part.

thanks!
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post #2 of 16
4/8/06 at 2:55pm
first install Gentoo , make sure its ok , then try to setup your wlan
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post #3 of 16
4/8/06 at 3:04pm
Thread Starter 
well, i was hoping to set it up /w the wireless connection, cause i don't want to be forced to keep the laptop in the computer room during the long install... thts kind of y i got a laptop. is there no way to set it up b4 the install?
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post #4 of 16
4/8/06 at 8:21pm
depends if it sees your card or not
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post #5 of 16
4/9/06 at 2:38am
Thread Starter 
I'm not really sure if its, because no matter what modules i load, iwconfig won't recognize my wireless. i went into the net folder for the modules, and looked at the list of em, and loaded them all one by one, and tried to run net-setup on all possible network devices. then i ran iwconfig to see if anything was up. It took me a while, but the result was still negative. Do i need to do it wired, and compile support for my wireless card into the kernel or something? Considering this laptop is "centrino", i figured support for the wireless card would be standard. I'm really suprised.
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post #6 of 16
4/9/06 at 8:57am
Unfortunately in kernel linux support for wireles is still relatively poor. With the exception of Prism, in kernel support is still mostly for older obsolete chipsets. Since Gentoo releases don't contain ~arch packages and many wireless drivers are developmental, they may not be included on Gentoo's release media. Unfortunately that means if you need to have wireless support during setup, then you'll probably have to find out what ebuild Gentoo uses for your particular hardware and download it from another source and manually copy into your portage installation. Then emerge the package and load the module manually, make sure it recognizes your card, and continue on with network setup. Bottom line: if you can do it wired first, that's the way to go, then emerge your wireless package after you're all setup and connected to the net.
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post #7 of 16
4/9/06 at 1:45pm
Thread Starter 
ah, all right. I'm gonna give one last shot at wireless, b4 i give up on it completely. Conrad's x86 livecds have ndiswrapper (if i misspelled that, sorry), and I remember readins somewhere tht, tht helps /w wireless.... It's a longshot, but... I'll give it a try, and let you guys know how it goes.
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post #8 of 16
4/10/06 at 6:37am
you still have not told us what wlan card you have
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post #9 of 16
4/10/06 at 11:08pm
Thread Starter 
according to acer's website its: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG. I'm not sure if thts the official name, or the promotional name they give it. ne way, the conrad install cd couldn't recognize the network, sadly. i tried to use a ubuntu livecd to install ubuntu, then use tht to install gentoo, but that didn't work, cause ubuntu needs video drivers to support the card in here.... so if any thing, i have to download the install cd instead, and use that. i was hoping that i could do it straight off the cd, but i basically have no choice at this point...
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post #10 of 16
4/11/06 at 1:11am
The Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG drivers are not yet in the kernel.

The drivers are available though, and have been put into portage.

Here are some instructions for installing them in gentoo. [but not during an install]

Here is the drivers homepage.

I don't know your technical level, but, while this can be done, it would not be trivial [but it would be fun!! ]. You would need some kind of network access to at least download the required files. [this could be done on another box & floppy'd over, or hardwired long enough to emerge -f those packages to build offline.]


troymc
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post #11 of 16
4/11/06 at 6:39am
do what i told you to do in my first post here . If you had followed what i told you now you'd had Gentoo
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post #12 of 16
4/12/06 at 7:09pm
Thread Starter 
yea, i just did a wired install. Not everything is working yet, but i'm working on it, lol. first priority is wireless though... I'll install those drivers, thanks.
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post #13 of 16
4/15/06 at 1:54am
Thread Starter 
well, i tried to install that wireless driver... i created the initscript, and all that, but when i try to do the rc-update add ipw3945d default, it says * ipw3945d not executable; skipping ....... what gives?
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post #14 of 16
4/15/06 at 4:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by YourDoom123
well, i tried to install that wireless driver... i created the initscript, and all that, but when i try to do the rc-update add ipw3945d default, it says * ipw3945d not executable; skipping ....... what gives?
ummm...sorry if this seems dumb or patronizing, but is it executable??
try:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
you should see something like this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
if you don't see any x's in that first part then do this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
then try your rc-update again.


troymc
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post #15 of 16
4/19/06 at 8:03am
BTW ipw3945 is now in portage ~x86 so you don't need that overlay in the howto anymore.
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post #16 of 16
4/20/06 at 6:47pm
Thread Starter 
ah, thanks, i'll try that... i assumed that portage would take care of all that for me, and i wouldn't need to fix tht stuff... well thts wht i get for assuming...
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