[Discuss] Wireless on Laptop

[Murray Strome]

John Blomfield wrote:
> Murray Strome wrote:
>> John Blomfield wrote:
>>> Murray Strome wrote:
>>>> Some time ago, I asked for help in trying to get a Live CD or DVD 
>>>> LINUX distribution that would properly recognize and configure my 
>>>> wireless card, which is:
>>>> Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
>>>>
>>> I have an Intel Pro/Wireless 2915BG in my laptop and Fedora 8 Live 
>>> KDE and Fedora 8 Live Gnome makes it work right out of the box. No 
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> John Blomfield
>>>
>>>> I had no luck with Knoppix nor with Ubuntu (though Ubuntu at least 
>>>> recognized the card).
>>>>
>>>> On a whim, I just downloaded Mandriva One 2008 CD and tried it. It 
>>>> worked flawlessly!  Also, my sound card works great with it, as 
>>>> does Flash with Firefox.  For what I have tried to this point, it 
>>>> appears to be faster than either (K)Ubuntu or Knoppix. Admittedly, 
>>>> I haven't tried too many things.
>>>>
>>>> Although I have come to like a lot about Kubuntu, at least for now, 
>>>> I will likely be playing with Mandriva on the laptop.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>> Steve Nelson wrote
>>>>> Hmmmm
>>>>>
>>>>> I have the same card in my Dell XPS laptop and Kubuntu recognized 
>>>>> it out of the box -- I did have to download the restricted 
>>>>> drivers, but that is no big deal either.
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems weird that it didn't work for you with Kubuntu.
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve
>> Steve: Did you INSTALL Kubuntu, or were you using the Live CD/DVD?  
>> That might be the difference.  I have not tried Fedora.
>> John: With Live KDE Fedora, is it relatively easy to make it 
>> "persistent", i.e. use an external drive to save all configuration 
>> changes, install new software, update old software, and save 
>> documents etc. in /home/<user>?  If so, I might give it a try when I 
>> get time.
>>
> I have installed Fedora 8 using a Live KDE CD on three computers so 
> far, including and laptop but I have been experimenting with just 
> running the Live KDE (not installed ) prior to taking it on my 
> travels.  In fact I created a Live version on a 2G Pen Flash Drive and 
> the pen provides some "persistent" storage,  In the case of the Live 
> CD you can save data also by using a USB Pen Drive or presumably a USB 
> external drive, just mount the drives in the normal way and copy files 
> to them.  I am not sure about whether you would be able to access a 
> eSATA external drive?  If you are using a Live CD I don't think it 
> would be possible to update any software because the "old" packages 
> are on the read only CD and can't be changed but on a Pen Drive it may 
> be possible?  My laptop BIOS treats the Pen Drive like another Hard 
> Drive and not as a "removable drive".  In the boot sequence you have 
> to set the Pen Drive as the 1st Hard Drive to get it to boot, it will 
> not recognize the Pen Drive as USB media.  All this is very BIOS 
> dependent; my main computer is now 3 to 4 years old and its BIOS will 
> not boot from a Pen Drive, it just does not recognize it at boot time 
> either as USB or HD.
>
> I have also been looking at Fedora's "livecd-tools" which enable you 
> to create a custom CD iso which you can then burn on a CD or Pen Drive 
> as a Live image or a normal Install image.  livecd-tools creates the 
> iso by downloading the packages you want using Red Hat's kickstart 
> file format for administrator network installs etc.  This of course 
> means you get the latest packages at the time of creation.  The tools 
> ensure that all the dependencies are taken care of and there are 
> sample kickstart files to ensure you get a basic working system that 
> you can add to or subtract from.
>
> John Blomfield
>
I have downloaded Fedora Core 8 Live DVD.  I cannot figure out how to 
set up the wireless card.  If I look at network configuration, and try 
to activate the wireless card, it fails.  If I go to the wireless 
settings tab, I cannot find anything to enable me to detect my wireless 
settings.   

I couldn't find any clear instructions in the Fedora help, nor on the 
Fedora website. 

I am probably looking in the wrong places!  Could you (or someone) 
please point me in the correct direction? 

Thanks.

Murray