I have successfully installed the latest Linux Mint for the very first time on an old (2001) Gateway 600 laptop. I still have my old Windows XP on this too.
I cannot figure out how to get the wireless connection to work (to connect to my home router).
I have tried installing my only "INF" file (WLLUC48.INF) using the "Control Center" application, "Windows Wireless Drivers". In there it say "Hardware present: No".
I believe I have "WaveLAN/IEEE" (Agere) wireless hardware.
Would anyone be willing to help me understand why and how wireless drivers should work in Linux? This is frustrating to someone who know Unix well but can't seem to figure out what Linux is doing wrong.
You usually don't use Windows wireless drivers in Linux. The one way you can is a complicated and bug-prone procedure that's as likely to crash your system than not.
So ... if there's no easy way for my built-in wireless device to work under Linux ... maybe I can find a Linux "app" (& hardware) that would make one of my USB ports connect to WiFi?
I'm not at all versed in Linux ... but while I learn it I would sure love to not need ethernet cat-5 cabling to it.
I hope all that lspci info I manually typed went through! I just tried the other command, "dmesg" and weeded out some interesting things:
Looks like something called "orinoco_cs" did see my wireless hardware:
orinoco_cs 2.0: Firmware determined as Lucent/Agere 8.10 (saying this again with 9.48)
Then...
eth1: Lucent/Agere firmware doesn't support manual roaming (says this over and over)
eth1: This firmware requires an ESSID in IBSS-Ad-Hoc mode.
I didn't see any of that lspci info, sorry. You could try plugging in with a cable, so you could copy-paste. or save to a text file and transfer with a flash drive...