Month: October 2002

I reinstalled SuSE 8.1 again yesterday evening. This time, I found the section of the install process that asked me for the wireless networking parameters, but once the install was complete, the network still didn’t appear. Bummer.

This time, though, I was determined to get it working. From Windows, I delved into the SuSE on-line support database, read the PCMCIA HOWTO, and goggled around a bit. I came up with some information that looked plausible (here and here, namely that I needed to tweak the file /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia. This I did, setting the variables PCMCIA_SYSTEM to “kernel” and PCMCIA to “i82365” (both had been blank). I then went back into the control centre, and found that ther system had picked up the fact that the wireless network card was installed. Yay!

But although I could now ping myself, the rest of the network was still unreachable. Boo!

A reboot sorted it all, though, and we are now broadcasting live from SuSE 8.1. Woo!

I got Mandrake 9.0 installed yesterday evening. It successfully picked up the PCMCIA card, and hooked itself up to our wireless LAN first time, no problems. It did ask me for configuration information half-way through the install process, though, which SuSE didn’t. Makes me wonder if I missed it, so I’m about to give SuSE another run.

One thing that both installs had in common, though, was that they crashed out on me after I had been logged in for a couple of minutes. Working happily one moment, then the next minute the monitor shuts down. In both cases I had installed the latest version of XFree86 with 3D extensions, and had the monitor running at 1600 x 1200 in 24bit colour. With what little I know about Linux it could be anything, really, but when the monitor goes blank, I tend to suspect something in the video subsystem. I don’t plan to be runnig many 3D games on Linux, so I’ll probably do the next installs without the fancy stuff, and see what happens.

On Tuesday I ordered a copy of SuSE Linux 8.1 from Dabs, and it arrived this morning. Yay! The installation process was quite simple: I chose the basic install, with KDE and OpenOffice, and added a few other things, like Mozilla and Opera. The installer ran through its paces, picked up my graphics card, monitor, printer and webcam… but no network.

We run a wireless network here at Sunpig Central. For me, this means I have a PCMCIA wireless card (a WebGear Aviator Pro from a couple of years ago) stuck in a PCMCIA adapter. According to the PCMCIA documentation within Linux, this card should work. I know it works, because on my last two Linux adventures I have had it working. But the SuSE installer didn’t pick it up. So now I’m trying desperately to remember what I did the last time to get it running.

On the positive side, thanks to the wonders of broadband, I also happen to have a set of Mandrake 9.0 ISO images. I’m in the middle of burning these to CD-ROM right now, and I might just try installing it to see if it’s any better at detecting the PCMCIA card.

Any Linux gurus out there, please feel free to comment on my plight….