danleff

Welcome! Let's start out with a few bits of information first. This may help us determine what might be happening. The directions that you linked to are for systems with 2 hard drives, using the second hard drive as the Fedora drive. That in mind; 1. What system do you have? Is this by chance a Dell or Gateway computer? Some system specs. would help. Amount of memory and how large is the hard drive that you are using? 2. What are you using to change your partitions, just the Fedora partitioning utility, or another partition manager? --It sounds like you told Fedora to overwrite the MBR, but the directions also note that they make a "boot" partition. Did you also make a boot partition? This may actually be a problem. 3. Since you are installing on the same hard drive as Windows, did you defrag the Windows partition before installing Fedora? This prevents any problem with data residing near the end of your Windows partition that could mess up things when Fedora (or whatever partitioning utility that you are using) attempts to make the Linux partitions. 4. When you go through the installation, what are you picking as the OS to boot first? Windows or Fedora?

On my web site, i have some directions that may help. But, the issue is did the drivers install properly? When you do iwconfig at a command prompt (terminal window) do you see any wireless extensions? Or does it say; eth0 lo sit0 "No wireless extensions." When you do ndiswrapper -l Do you get a message like; Installed ndis drivers rt2500 driver present, hardware present Of course, the rt2500 are my drivers. But if this is a ralink card, then you should see something like this. In terms of a card working "out of the box" I am not sure with SuSE. My Linspire box saw my card out of the box, but they also use ndiswrapper pre-installed to work on some cards. I think Dapper Dan has one that works in his distros. He may be able to give you a lead here.

Yep, I saw that. I think that's why Dapper Dan was trying to get a response on if the Mandriva Control Center network tool was finding eth0, or whatever, as being activated or inactive. I agree. He should try the command line options (commands) and see if the card comes up. I can't remember which Mandriva uses, dhclient, ifup, ifconfig....I use too many distros to remember. I can get into Mandriva later and look around. But I am not an expert at static connections. If his router is set to get an IP address, then his configuration needs to have those static values, including the correct DNS set in the router?

Originally posted by Dapper Dan: Quote: When you try to connect in the Mandrake Control Center, it says "connectiion failed?" Or are you just testing with your browser? What does the screen say for eth0 in the Mandriva Control Center? I assume that it says "failed?" Also, what is missing from your screenshot, does the DNS setting match the router's, assuming that you still have the static setup?

Just as in Windows XP, if you unmount (release) the USB key (as you should before removing the key), then you get the same problem. If you unmount the stick, remove it, then re-insert it, does auto-mount bring it up again? If you look at the /etc/fstab file contents, note the mount point of the usb stick. You can always mount it manually. Say, fstab says it is at sda1...then; mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/(what the mount point is in FC3, as noted in the fstab file).

Quote: Help!!! Need help configuring a wireless card on suse 9.1 personal with a Netgear MA521 wireless card. Yes, there are a couple of issues. If this is the version of the Netgear card that I think it is, then it uses the ralink driver. Take into consideration that SuSE 9.1 is an older distro and is less likely to work. SuSE 9.2 or 9.3 works better with ndiswrapper. I don't think that the Linuxant driver works with these chipsets. Quote: I then did some google searches and tried to get my windows xp driver to work using Linuxant's driverloader. I used the web configurator and a driver that I downloaded off of Netgear's website and everything seemed to install properly but when I did iwconfig I did not have an IP address and still there were no "link lights". As above. Also, the SuSE kernel source needs to be installed for ndiswrapper to work. There is an issue with the version of the kernel used in SuSE 9.1 that does not allow the XP drivers to work correctly. The infamous " 4 stack kernel" issue. SuSE 9.2 works with the drivers, as the kernel is not limited to 4 stacks. Is your router set up with WEP or WPA encription? You also need to configure youe essid, channel and WEP/WPA (if you are using this) key to get an access point. The ndiswrapper web site also notes that the stock drivers do not work with ndiswrapper for this card. Quote: I finally tried to use ndiswrapper. I found an rpm for version .10 but no rpms for version .12 or later, and .12 was the version that was suggested to work with the netgear driver. Unfortunately ndiswrapper version .10 didn't work I got a "hardware present" message but when I modprobed, the network card would not respond. I tried to compile version .12 but I got an error with make when it was trying to compile usb.c, the error was "usb.c line 543: error: structure has no member named 'act_altsetting'". Now I am all out of ideas. You can't keep attempting to install different versions of ndiswrapper on top of each other. You must un-install any previous versions before trying to install a new version. See the ndiswrapper wiki installation page about this. Ndiswrapper version 1.2 should work with the compile/usb issue that you are having, but realize that you have an RPM install of ndiswrapper and also are attempting to install from source. Any chance of using SuSE 9.2 or newer on this box? I know that this is a lot to absorb, but I went through the same issues with my Linksys ralink card. See my web page about this located here.

Use Dan's instructions to get into the Grub.conf file and change the entry that should look something like; title other chainloader +1 to title Windows XP chainloader +1

Try this guide.

Did you see if the sound card was configured? system-config-sound At the pop up window, configure the sound card, which should be the snd-intelx0 driver. Then try alsamixer or kmix. If you continue to get the same message, type in a terminal window; /sbin/alsactl restore

Just checking on one more thing. When you configured dhcp, did you tell the network config. tool to start the connection at boot time?

In order to help, we need a little more information. What version of ndiswrapper did you use? What version Netgear WG511 card is this? There are multiple versions of this card, with 3 different chipsets. Knowing the version will help a good deal in dteremining if the card can be run via ndiswrapper. Did you try installing the Windows XP drivers for the correct version of the card? Ddi ndiswrapper compile without any errors? I think that Linspire comes with the kernel headers that are needed to properly compile ndiswrapper. You may also have more luck on the Linspire support forum. I know a bunch of the guys there can give you a lot of information about wireless NIC cards and Linspire.

Drivers should already be present in Fedora for sound. The drivers are part of the Alsa sound package. Windows drivers do not work in Linux. The unusual thing is that often the sound is muted in Fedora. Most folks miss configuring their sound in the hardware summary window during the installation process. You don't mention whether you are using the KDE or Gnome desktop GUI, but let's use the command line to try first. Get to a terminal window, as root user. Type in; alsamixer (hit the enter key) Make sure that the volume is turned up all the way for at least the master setting (the first grapic bar)and the cd volume bar. Hit the escape key to exit alsamixer and see if you can play sound at all. If something is amiss, or the sound card is really not configured, at the command line, as root user; system-config-sound At the poop up window, configure the sound card, which should be the snd-intelx0 driver. If you are using KDE, you can also use kmix to change the volumes, as long as sound is configured; kmix This will give you a graphical window that will allow you to change the volumes.

Dan, what model do you have? I just looked at the Actiontec web page. Model # EX560LKA is not listed as suported by Linux. Model # EX560LKC is listed as supported. The latter has a Lucent Venus chipset. The first, does not specify the chipset. Wanta make a bet? For the EX560LKA, the faq states; Quote: Q: How do I install the modem for Linux? A: Connect the External Call Waiting modem to a serial port on the back of the computer. Connect the power supply. Turn the modem on. It is now ready for use. Select the /dev/ttySx or /dev/cuax that the modem is on in any communication software you plan to use the modem with.

Novell recently offered a quick Linux reference quide that may help. Since it was offered free, I assume that it is able to be used by all. I have it on my web site here.

Humpfest, thanks for the images. Dapper Dan, how are things? Maybe you can clarify the static setup in this case. This is not my forte. I wonder if Humpfest needs to delete his current network configs. and start from scratch. I bet eth1 is now eth0, since he has no onboard NIC and only one card in the system? Does the static IP address look off too?

Quote: I'm not really sure why but I frequently see people advise that Windows must be on the primary master HDD. Actually, this is not what I said...and yes, you are correct. But, in both these cases the usual scenario holds true. Both Armageddon00 and Niwrad had XP on the primary master. One of the systems is also a Dell which can potentually raise some other issues with the hidden recovery/bios partition on some Dell systems. Niwrad switched out his drives for his Linux install and is having trouble dual-booting. It's great that you were able to set up your drives this way, for a specific reason. But each of these users need to know how to fix what they have now. Once they are up and running, we can give them more possibilities. tyga, perhaps you can stick around this thread and assist?

So I assume that you are using the Internet Utility to set up the NIC card(s). Start-->System-->Configuration-->Configure My Computer. Look and see what is assigned to eth0. Then get to a terminal window, as root user. Type in; ifconfig (hit the enter key) Do you have an ip address for that designation? It should be the second line in the eth0 entry, or whatever the card is that is configured for DHCP. It may be eth0, eth1... Let us know if you have multiple entries here for each interface (eth0, eth1...) and post the results if possible. Mandrake may be confused by multiple cards attached to the box (if this is what you have), or if you have onboard LAN, as well. This may need to be disabled, if you are not using it, in the bios.

Toggling back and forth between the drives in the bios is not the best answer. The usual senario is this; 1. have XP on the primary master. It always installs on the first primary partition. 2. Install Linux on whatever partition that you want (or free space on the drive, if it is large enough). The drive that you are using to install Linux has to have at least one partition on it. Linux can not see a "raw" drive that has no partition structure to it. However in both your cases, you need to know what the Linux partition that grub is using right now, in order to change grub to find where Linux is, relative to what are your master and slave drives. If you installed Linux on the master drive, then you point grub to that partition. If you installed it on a slave or secondary drive, then point grub there. Depending what distro you both are using, grub has either a grub.conf or menu.lst file that holds this information. The menu.lst file is usually located in the /boot/grub directory of the partition that Linux is installed on. If either of you can post your menu.lst file, then we can look at it and tell you how to change it to boot both XP and Linux. To recap, have the drive with XP on it as your master drive. Post your menu.lst file and let us know if it is currently on the master drive, or slave drive.

Linux should have no problem with the cards. You seem to be trying to set up the system with static values? Does your cable company assign static or dynamic IP's to establish a connection?

There is no need to change the hard drive hierarchies when installing Linux. The only real rule of thumb, is that Windows likes to be on the primary master drive. If you swap the drives, then you need to tell grub what you did, as it will look for Fedora, or whatever, on the partition, at the location that you originally installed it on. If you swap the drives, Windows and Linux can not be found, as grub is configured to look at the location you originally installed to. So, if you installed Linux on the first partiton of the primary master (hda1),then switch the designations, the Linux bootloader is still looking for itself on the primary master (hda1) not where it now is, the primary slave (hdb1). Before installing Fedora or any other Linux distro, is to defrag the Window's partition before installing any flavor of Linux on the same Hard drive. Armageddon00, it sounds like the former may be at issue for you (the need to defrag the windows partition). Can you be more specific what problem that you are having? Fedora should/can be installed on the free space that you have on drive 1, if you tell it to install there. Just tell the installer partitoning tool to put Fedora there. It will ask you if you want to put Fedora on free space, or take over free space on the NTFS partiton. BTW, is this a Dell or Gateway system? What tool did you use to format or set up your drive partitions?

I'm now thinking that it may be a hardware issue. What video card is on the system, ATI or NVIDIA? Try passing the command; linux nofb (hit the enter key) ...when you reach the initial installation window of Mandrake.

OK, this was just for later reference. FC4 should detect the NIC right off. If not, you should be able to use system-config-network from the command line, or go to Start-->System-->Configuration-->Configure My Computer from KDE to set up the NIC, if needed.

Originally posted by Niwrad: Quote: 1. Install from XP....Problem: Disc loads the graphics, but the install graphic does not respond to mouse clicks. Forget this. You can't install Mandrake from Windows XP. You must do so from a direct boot to the cd. If you plan on installing to the same disk as XP is on, make sure that you defrag the XP partition. This assures that files are moved closer to the beginning of the partition, reducing the possibility of data loss. Manrdake will ask you if you want to use free space from the XP partition to install. However, if you already made a suitable Linux partition, with say, PartitionMagic, then you should be fine. The thing about Dell systems, is that they often have a small hidden partition on the beginning of the hard drive that can include bios related data, as well as recovery information. On these systems, I recommend using another secondary drive, which you have, for the Mandrake installation. Quote: 2. Boot from CD....Problem: Graphics load, allows me to select install, searches for USD devices, searches memory, then encounters a fatal error and initiates a termination sequence. This is most likely due to a bad download, or burning the iso file at too fast speed. The iso images need to be burned slooowwlly. Say at 4X or 8X. You can read about this in my iso burning basics how-to. Quote: Oh, forgot to metion that I used OS X 10.4 Disk Utility to burn the ISO images to disk. Thanks for any help or references. A MAC? I know nothing about this utility, but if it is capable of burning bootable iso images, it should be fine.

I just ordered on of these for my mini-itx system. It should be in later this week. I have never tried Ubuntu, but maybe I will give it a go!

I'll have to take a look at this in Fedora. Your problem is described this Fedora article.