I am going to kill linksys.... (linux help)

[WhirlwindMonk]

I am about ready to scream and break something....

All right, my issue is that I cannot get my Linksys WUSB11 802.11b usb wireless adapter v3.0 to work in linux. I have tried both Ubuntu and and Mandrake/Mandriva. I have tried ndiswrapper on the windows drivers, the prism drivers, and the atmel drivers. None of them will completely install. Every single one of them hits an error at one point or another.

Would anyone be willing to help me out with this? Ubuntu or Mandriva are prefered, but I'll try any other one as long as it is free if you think it will work better. My wireless adapter is the only way that I have of accessing the internet from my computer, so I need to get it working if I'm going to primarily use linux (which I really want to do).

 

[FreeGrace]

Hi Monk,

I can only suggest you try Mepis an excellent and easy Linux distro.I have not heard of any wireless problems but personally don't really know,its free you can download from their site www.mepis.org

 

[raphink]

Switching distro is not the solution to a hardware issue with Linux most of the time. It's just ignoring the problem. Once you choose a good distro, don't change just because of such things.

Did you ask on IRC? A lot of people can help you who know the very distro you are using.
I recommend you ask on Freenode :
server/port : irc.freenode.net/6667
chan : #ubuntu or #mandriva , depending on the distro you are running now.

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

I have tried many times on irc, and either no one can help me, or they start to help and then sort of lose interest and go off and do something else. I literally had someone tell me they were looking for stuff to see if they could help, I waited five minutes, and then they sent out a message saying that they would be back later, they were going to play a game for a little bit. So I've been getting a little frusterated with them.

 

[Swart]

I am about ready to scream and break something....

All right, my issue is that I cannot get my Linksys WUSB11 802.11b usb wireless adapter v3.0 to work in linux. I have tried both Ubuntu and and Mandrake/Mandriva. I have tried ndiswrapper on the windows drivers, the prism drivers, and the atmel drivers. None of them will completely install. Every single one of them hits an error at one point or another.

Would anyone be willing to help me out with this? Ubuntu or Mandriva are prefered, but I'll try any other one as long as it is free if you think it will work better. My wireless adapter is the only way that I have of accessing the internet from my computer, so I need to get it working if I'm going to primarily use linux (which I really want to do).

Wireless adapters are notoriously difficult to get working with Linux. My suggestion is to first find out what success (or not) others have had with getting the drivers (if you have any real ones) to work. This means a good deal of time with Google searching every single little tidbit of information. You may find some hacker somewhere has gotten a particular piece of hardware to work just nicely.

As much of a pain as it is, it is better to work from source code rather than compiled drivers. The following information is good for any driver work.

Choose a development version of Linux. Suse is a good compromise as long as you don't use the personal edition - which has no compiler. I recommend trying Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and Debian - in that order. If a driver is compiled for a particular configuration or distribution, then you may find you MUST use that distribution in order for it to work. If an RPM is available, use that first, then move to the tar file.

It helps to have a separate development PC that you don't care what happens to. This also means it is possible for you to compile the driver on the development PC and then copy it over to your production PC. In some cases this can save days of work.

Linuxquestions.org is a great place to get specific questions about veryt specific problems. However, you need to make sure you have exhausted all possible means at your disposal and have fully documented your processes. You are much more likely to get a response from a page and a half of description of your process that a simple "Help! I can't get my yum-cha device to work!"

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

Wireless adapters are notoriously difficult to get working with Linux. My suggestion is to first find out what success (or not) others have had with getting the drivers (if you have any real ones) to work. This means a good deal of time with Google searching every single little tidbit of information. You may find some hacker somewhere has gotten a particular piece of hardware to work just nicely.

As much of a pain as it is, it is better to work from source code rather than compiled drivers. The following information is good for any driver work.

Choose a development version of Linux. Suse is a good compromise as long as you don't use the personal edition - which has no compiler. I recommend trying Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and Debian - in that order. If a driver is compiled for a particular configuration or distribution, then you may find you MUST use that distribution in order for it to work. If an RPM is available, use that first, then move to the tar file.

It helps to have a separate development PC that you don't care what happens to. This also means it is possible for you to compile the driver on the development PC and then copy it over to your production PC. In some cases this can save days of work.

Linuxquestions.org is a great place to get specific questions about veryt specific problems. However, you need to make sure you have exhausted all possible means at your disposal and have fully documented your processes. You are much more likely to get a response from a page and a half of description of your process that a simple "Help! I can't get my yum-cha device to work!"

Thanks. I'm going to first try to get it working with Mandriva because that is what I have done the most research with up to date, and I think I am close to getting it to work (using the linux wlan drivers). I may try another distro, but I'm not willing to pay for anything, because my wireless adapter is only going to be necessary for the next couple months. Then I'll be in college with a direct cable connection. Thanks for the help, and if you think of any other pieces of advice please share them, they may not help now, but they could be useful down the road if I run into any other problems.

 

[MusicalProgrammer]

Does Linksys have any official support for Linux platforms? Unfortunately, precious few companies actually do...

Check Debian message boards is about the best advice I can offer.