How can I make F11 recognize my laptop's new wireless card?

joe.pelayo · #1 20th June 2009, 07:47 PM

Hello everybody.

Since my laptop's former wireless card (Atheros) was failing I decided to get a replacement but only got an Intel PRO 2200BG (which is now working very well in the F11 liveUSB). The problem here is that the already installed F11 refuses to load (obviously it does not recognize the card): the load process stops at some point and the screen stays 'sky blue'.

How can I make F11 forget the other card and accept the new one? I wouldn't want to reinstall now.

Thanks.
Joe.

***glennzo*** · #2 20th June 2009, 11:02 PM

Bump.

So I have no clue, but I'm curious as to how one would handle something like this. After all, all it is is a hardware change. Shouldn't be a big deal, should it? Here's my first guess, and it is only a guess. Boot to runlevel 1 and edit text file(s) to disable the old card and / or permanenty unload modules for the old card. Reboot.

joe.pelayo · #3 20th June 2009, 11:03 PM

Since I didn't have anything in the new F11 install that I could not easily backup, I went ahead to install Fedora 10 i686 on it, but strangely enough I can't!

For starters after the drivers for Windows were installed, the laptop can use the new wireless card, Fedora 10 live usb can also connect to internet through that very card, and I can go ahead and install Fedora to the hard drive, but when I try to boot the newly installed system the graphics will just hang (in blue). Checking the 'verbose' mode I realized the problem was about udev not being able to do something, and another weird message appears: "unable to detect stabilization".

What is going on? Why can the liveusb boot but the installed system can't? And more importantly, how can I fix this?

Thanks.
Joe.

joe.pelayo · #4 20th June 2009, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glennzo

Bump.

So I have no clue, but I'm curious as to how one would handle something like this. After all, all it is is a hardware change. Shouldn't be a big deal, should it? Here's my first guess, and it is only a guess. Boot to runlevel 1 and edit text file(s) to disable the old card and / or permanenty unload modules for the old card. Reboot.

I'd do that if I had not reinstalled F10. There is no reason for F10 to 'remember' the old card and it still won't boot.

Thanks.
Joe.

***glennzo*** · #5 20th June 2009, 11:08 PM

The error (Fedora 10) used to be something along the lines of "cannot detect stabilization. Waiting 10 seconds", then booting would continue.

joe.pelayo · #6 20th June 2009, 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glennzo

The error (Fedora 10) used to be something along the lines of "cannot detect stabilization. Waiting 10 seconds", then booting would continue.

Well, this one waits quite a bit longer. After 5 minutes I rebooted the machine. It seems something else is screwed because udev is still unable to load, and after the first 10-seconds-prompt the machine just hangs.

Thanks.
Joe.

scottro · #7 21st June 2009, 02:37 AM

Isn't there something in the firmware group for that card? Darned if I remember the name.

Ah, see if you have ipw-2200-firmware.noarch. That should be what you want.

patrickian · #8 21st June 2009, 03:22 AM

Hello,
I have JUST got my Fedora 11 wireless card working (literally 40 mins ago).
I used found the
webpage "http://www.cenolan.com/2009/06/installing-broadcom-wireless-sta-driver-in-fedora-11/"
My laptop is a dell XPS M1730 .
Results from lspci | grep "Network controller:
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
Enabling rpmfusion I did:
yum install kmod-wl-PAE
Which installed (including the dependencies):
kmod-wl-PAE-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9
broadcom-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11
kmod-wl-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9
I restarted the machine. Went to System->Administration->Network
Selected New->Wireless connection and created a new connection WITH my wireless card present.
pats

joe.pelayo · #9 21st June 2009, 06:44 AM

Never mind guys, I guess this was just the tip of the iceberg of the problem my laptop has. Now it just will freeze in Fedora 10, no matter if it is run from the HDD, or from a LiveUSB, no matter if the wifi card is connected to the machine, or if I use this or that stick of RAM.

I don't know if I must say "fortunately", but Windows XP is working (posting from there).

Thanks.
Joe.