WiFi Internet

[Gene Heskett]

Karl Larsen wrote:
>    I have not kept up. Do any of the Fedora Core versions even try to 
> have a WiFi setup? My laptop has Windows XP and a built in Wi Fi device. 
> I think the problem has been that no Linux person can get details on the 
> things.
> 
>    Of course it works fine with windows.
> 
> Karl
> 
It depends somewhat on the chipset in the laptops radio.  This HP has a 
broadcom bcm4318 radio in it, and this chip requires ndiswrapper and the 
windows drivers borrowed directly from the XP partition.  Its been hell 
to make it work, but its now working quite well, and without using 
NetworkManager because I'm running KDE, its started by the usual network 
script in /etc/rc.d/init.d at startup for me.  This is not how its 
supposed to work I keep being told.  But it does...

If you are running gnome, the instructions at
<http://www.redhat.com/magazine/003jan05/features/networkmanager/>
should get you at least into the right ballpark.

There is, we're told, some progress on a reverse engineered kernel 
module to drive this family of chips, but getting info on how to setup 
this driver is a bit like finding a lifetime supply of hens teeth. 
Those were, and still are AFAIK, apparently made out of pure 
unobtainium.  Of course someone closer to the progress of that driver 
than I obviously am, may chime right in and correct me.  If you are 
keeping the box up2date with yum or yumex, then the latest kernels 
actually have this module in them already, and it may be that it can 
work if thats your chipset.

Otherwise post your lspci output so we can see what chipset the radio is.

-- 
Cheers, Gene