please help a poor linux n00b with drivers

[nealric]

Well I finnaly got around to installing Red Hat 9 on one of my drives and have run into nothing but problems.

#1- No wireless lan- Seems to have ever wlan device built in EXCEPT mine So, I look for linux drivers (which fortunatly exist). Unfortunatly, I find that linux drivers work in no way similar to user friendly microsoft drivers.

I have a Linksys WUSB11, so I go to their site and download the .tar file (I assume thats basically a zip). I untar it (in a folder on my desktop- goes to /home/myusername correct?), and end up with no exe file or anything I can actually run. So, I go to trusty old google and find a tutorial. It tells me:

log in as root in the console (done)

compile the driver (huh?)
Thats where I am confused

It says to go to cd/root/drivername
but I didnt put the driver there- anb typing that command does nothing that I can see.

So I type cd/were I actually put the driver
Says no such directory

Confused, I just type the path of where I put the directory- output as follows

[bash] path exists (or something like that)

So am I reading off the directory??? (im so used to dos)

Next thing the tutorial says is to type 'make config'
it says no such command

So I try just make config
and it says something like it does not recognize target config

If that had worked, the tutorial tells me that I should get a command line instal program running.



#2. My dual monitors dont work. It recognizes my second monitor as my main one (wich is a small 17 i have on top of my 21) unless I unplug the second monitor. Is there a linux driver for this?

#3. I installed Linux on a small removable hard drive. However, when it installed, it overwrote some of my main hard drive to give me a dual boot screen- it gave me no option not to do this (i just wanted to dual boot through bios and leave my xp partition). Now, my system wont boot without the removable drive (if i try, it gives me GRUB error)- hardly desirable since I used other drives in that reovable tray.


So... Anybody know what I am doing wrong? Im sure Im missing some big concepts about the linux operating system.

 

[cack01]

I wish you luck, I had yo go through the same thing when I tried Linux, installing the drivers/modules were too much for me and it why I stopped using Linux. If I remember right you need to rebuild the kernel. But I was using mandrake not Red Hat.

 

[Slougi]

When you change to root you need to change to the directory where you untarred the drivers to. Propably something like /home/user/directory. The run ./configure && make && make install. This will run the configure script to setup the build environment, then actually compile the stuff, and then install it. Almost all Linux apps are compiled like this.
After you do that you can load the driver using "modprobe <driver>", you will propably want to add the driver name to /etc/modules.autoload.

 

[Arkaine23]

Didyou put it in your /home/username, or in a directory in your /home/username?

Use the ls command to figure out what exactly you untarred. cd to where you think its at, then just ls.

cd /home/username
ls

There should be a makefile. This is an executable script that'll get you on your way to installing the driver.

You may also have to edit another config file with a text editor like pico, vi, emacs, etc in order to get that driver to load when you start your machine.

As for you boot loader...

It may have placed /boot onto your first HDD. If so you can probably tar the files up (tar xpfz /boot boot.tgz) and move them onto the removeable drive (mv boot.tgz /wherever) , then untar them (tar cfz boot.tgz).

You may then have to repair your windows. Do this for 2k or XP by booting from a windows CD and choosing the repair console option. fixmbr and fixboot will probably clear things up.

I'm not absolutely sure on this so you probably shouldn't try my advice. But its something that may help you get started looking for the problem. If you don't find an answer here, try a linux forum like www.justlinux.com

 

[Titan386]

#3. I installed Linux on a small removable hard drive. However, when it installed, it overwrote some of my main hard drive to give me a dual boot screen- it gave me no option not to do this (i just wanted to dual boot through bios and leave my xp partition). Now, my system wont boot without the removable drive (if i try, it gives me GRUB error)- hardly desirable since I used other drives in that reovable tray.

It seems you've installed Grub into the MBR of your hard drive (it was probably trying to set up a dual boot for you). To remove Grub, you can just overwrite the MBR via the XP recovery console. I'm not 100% sure on the proceedure, either consult google or ask in the MS OS forum.

However, then you will have no way to boot Linux. Probably your best bet is to install Grub onto the removable hard drive. I suggest you consult the excellent Grub documentation:
http://www.gnu.org/manual/grub/html_mono/grub.html

Look under the section entitled "Installing GRUB natively" for instructions, and also make sure you understand the Grub naming convention. If you have any questions or don't understand something, please ask before you do anything. Overwriting the wrong MBR isn't good

 

[nealric]

ok update on the wireless:

Got the thing actually compiled and run
BUT

Still no work

The readme file tells me to run something called "modprobe'' to configure it to actually work and instuall (it's still listed as "unknown device" in the nice happy GUI hardware browser. What on earth is modprobe and how do I use it?

Thanks for all the help so far

 

[Titan386]

modprobe is a command line tool for inserting modules into the kernel. The syntax is simple:

modprobe driver_name

I would assume that the documentation would tell you what driver name you should use. You need to be root to use modprobe.

Once you've inserted the module and it is working, you'll want to have the system load the module on boot automatically. Usually, distributions have a file with a list of such autoloaded modules, and all you would do is add yours to the list. I found this on www.redhat.com , which should explain Red Hat's way of doing this:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kernel-modules.html