Hi!<br><br>I used to have a Toshiba laptop (made in USA of parts made in Japan!) which required a PCMCIA wireless card. It's still in use by another Linux addict, and it does a very good job of running Ubuntu. If it doesn't have a lot of RAM, try xubuntu. It's what my old laptop is getting.<br>
<br>Margaret Wendall<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Rick Moen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
----- Forwarded message from Linda R <<a href="mailto:lindamarcella@yahoo.com">lindamarcella@yahoo.com</a>> -----<br>
<br>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:53:32 -0700 (PDT)<br>
From: Linda R <<a href="mailto:lindamarcella@yahoo.com">lindamarcella@yahoo.com</a>><br>
To: Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br>
Subject: Re: Linux Certified laptop<br>
X-Mailer: YahooMailClassic/12.0.2 YahooMailWebService/<a href="tel:0.8.109.295617">0.8.109.295617</a><br>
<br>
Hi Rick,<br>
<br>
Thank you for your reply and all of your helpful information. I'm sorry for not providing more hardware identifying info.<br>
<br>
The wireless card is like credit card size. Is that PCMCIA? Sorry I'm ignorant on this. It says Netgear WG511 54 Mbps Wireless.<br>
<br>
I'm sorry for the late notice; I wasn't planning to come tomorrow, and I originally sent the email about a week ago. Don't worry if you don't have time to respond for a while.<br>
<br>
Another reason I'm interested to convert to Ubuntu is that other people at a company I work for (contractually) use it. Also the Unix sys admin at my (regular) job uses it or has used it at home.<br>
<br>
The kind of dual monitor I would like to try to configure would be to allow different content on each screen.<br>
<br>
I walk a lot so I wouldn't mind. I'll look into the Berkeley users group, to find out if they have install fests.<br>
<br>
The output of lspci is below.<br>
<br>
Thank you,<br>
<br>
Linda<br>
<br>
lspci<br>
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)<br>
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE Host-to-AGP Bridge (rev 03)<br>
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)<br>
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)<br>
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)<br>
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)<br>
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 82)<br>
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)<br>
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 02)<br>
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 02)<br>
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)<br>
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)<br>
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 01)<br>
02:03.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller<br>
02:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 80)<br>
02:0c.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--- On Fri, 3/25/11, Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
[Snip Linda's inclusion of the entire preceding thread. Sheesh,<br>
that reply mode is obnoxious.]<br>
<br>
----- End forwarded message -----<br>
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>> -----<br>
<br>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:55:24 -0700<br>
From: Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br>
To: Linda R <<a href="mailto:lindamarcella@yahoo.com">lindamarcella@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Re: Linux Certified laptop<br>
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.<br>
<br>
Quoting Linda R (<a href="mailto:lindamarcella@yahoo.com">lindamarcella@yahoo.com</a>):<br>
<br>
> The wireless card is like credit card size. Is that PCMCIA?<br>
<br>
Yes, that's exactly right!<br>
<br>
By the way, there's a standard joke about that -- that it stands for<br>
'People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronymns'. Which is a large<br>
part of why the official name was eventually changed from PCMCIA to PC-Card<br>
(though you'll still hear both mentioned).<br>
<br>
(No reason why you should need to know this, but the _real_ expansion<br>
for 'PCMCIA' is 'Personal Computer Memory Card International<br>
Association'.)<br>
<br>
> Sorry I'm ignorant on this. It says Netgear WG511 54 Mbps Wireless.<br>
<br>
Well, it turns out, that there are some very different sub-types of<br>
WG511 (which uses wireless chips capable of the 802.11g class of<br>
wireless protocols), depending on which generation of gear you have.<br>
<br>
A rather elaborate explanation follows. (Apologies for the complexity,<br>
but it's not my fault; it's Netgear's fault.)<br>
<br>
1. The earliest WG511 v1 series used the Intersil ISL3890 Prism Duette chips.<br>
Some sites say these cards say 'Made in Taiwan' on them.<br>
2. A later series (WG511 v2) used a Marvell Technology 88w8335 Libertas chip.<br>
Some sites say these cards say 'Made in China' on them.<br>
2. The later WG511 v3 and WG511T series switched to the Atheros<br>
AR5212 and Super-G AR5212 chips, respectively. It is said,<br>
however, that some other WG511 v3 cards use a more-problematic,<br>
low-end, and undesirable Intersil Prism54-softmac chip.<br>
<br>
Details at:<br>
<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsNetgear#PCMCIA" target="_blank">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsNetgear#PCMCIA</a><br>
<br>
Apologies for being obliged to reveal to you what amounts to a confusing<br>
situation, but this is one of the rare cases where a single<br>
manufacturer's model ('Netgear WG511') could be built on one of _three_<br>
underlying chipsets. Each of the three (four?) chipsets is a different driver<br>
situation. You _might_ be able to determine from examining markings on<br>
the card which situation applies -- whether it's an original WG511, a<br>
WG511 v2, or a WG511 v3 / WG511T. Or, insert the card into your Linux<br>
machine and, as the root user, type this query:<br>
<br>
cardctl ident<br>
<br>
To explain, the 'cardctl' (card control) utility is part of the<br>
pcmcia-cs (PCMCIA Card Services) package, and 'cardctl ident' forces the<br>
PCMCIA controller chip on your motherboard to directly ask all present<br>
PCMCIA cards what its burned-in version string is, and what its<br>
Manufacturer ID (manfid) is.<br>
<br>
For example, driver 'prism54' works for cards based on the Intersil<br>
ISL3890 chips. The 'prism54-islsm' driver works for the Intersil<br>
Prism54-softmac chips. The Madwifi driver works for the Atheros<br>
chips.<br>
<br>
The Marvell chips do not have native Linux drivers (last I heard) because<br>
Marvell Technologies is hostile to open source and the chips haven't<br>
been reverse-engineered yet, but you can make them work under Linux<br>
using a kludge called 'ndiswrapper' (that cleverly uses binary-only<br>
Marvell drivers intended for Windows 2000 _or_ an MS-Windows<br>
driver called "mrv8335"). That situation is detailed here:<br>
<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/NetgearWG511andNdiswrapper" target="_blank">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/NetgearWG511andNdiswrapper</a><br>
<br>
Also, quoting part of<br>
<a href="http://www.oprekpc.com/forum/printview.php?t=1697&start=0&sid=2b920ccdad86b8d4832b992522c563ee" target="_blank">http://www.oprekpc.com/forum/printview.php?t=1697&start=0&sid=2b920ccdad86b8d4832b992522c563ee</a><br>
:<br>
<br>
Connecting to a Wireless LAN with Linux, Part 1<br>
Using NdisWrapper and Verifying Kernel Support<br>
<br>
Carla Schroder<br>
Sunday, January 30, 2005 07:40:48 PM<br>
Copy the Windows .inf driver to your Linux system, then run this command<br>
to load the driver in the NdisWrapper, using your real file name of<br>
course:<br>
# ndiswrapper -i /wirelessthings/windriver.inf<br>
Verify the installation:<br>
# ndiswrapper -l<br>
<br>
Installed ndis drivers:<br>
<br>
windriver.inf driver present<br>
<br>
<br>
I'm afraid this is one of the games that some card manufacturers<br>
(in this case, Netgear) play on their customers, changing underlying<br>
chips without bothering to signal having done so by changing the model<br>
number. The manufacturer assumes that you will just use the binary-only<br>
proprietary MS-Windows driver that they provide on a CD in the<br>
plastic-wrapped package (or that the manufacturer furnished to Microsoft<br>
to include in MS-Windows), with the binary-only driver made to match<br>
whatever chip-du-jour is used so the user doesn't know the difference.<br>
<br>
Why do some manufacturers do this? I assume they switch chips because<br>
they go with whatever's cheap at the moment. I assume they don't bother<br>
to inform customers of the change (e.g., through a revised model number)<br>
because they (some manufacturers) are indifferent or hostile to open<br>
source and just don't care.<br>
<br>
One might joke that open source considers the following to be swear<br>
words: Marvell, Broadcom, ATI, NVidia (all chip manufacturers who are<br>
notably hostile to open source).<br>
<br>
A further matter: It used to be that card manufacturers put the<br>
low-level code to initialise the card into a small ROM chip furnished<br>
with the card. Later, they realised they could save money by omitting<br>
that ROM chip and furnishing the same initialisation code as a 'firmware<br>
image' file provided with the binary-only MS-Windows drivers. The<br>
manufacturers tend to furnish that firmware file to Microsoft under<br>
non-disclosure, and embed it into the Windows drivers, but not bother to<br>
give the open source community permission to redistribute that file.<br>
So, Linux users often need tricks to extract the needed firmware file<br>
from MS-Windows drivers and write it to your /lib/firmware directory<br>
for the Linux kernel to use. Reputedly, sometimes 'cardctl ident'<br>
doesn't even give you useful information until you've furnished the<br>
firmware file so the card can be initialised.<br>
<br>
The 'tricks' that Linux users employ often involve utilities with names<br>
like 'fwcutter' (i.e., firmware cutter) that 'cut' the firmware image<br>
file right out of a Windows driver CD or drive download Zip or Exe file,<br>
and then write the extracted firmware file to /lib/firmware on Linux<br>
for your future convenience.<br>
<br>
<br>
Before I attempt further explanation, perhaps you should just<br>
attempt to determine which chip you have, as you'll notice that<br>
I started simultaneously researching each of the possible chip<br>
situations, and it's more efficient for you to collect relevant<br>
data, first.<br>
<br>
Personally, if I determined that I had Linux-hostile hardware<br>
that was going to hassle me or put me through kludge solutions<br>
like ndiswrapper, I might prefer to shake the piggy bank and see<br>
if I had budget to buy a replacement card with better Linux support.<br>
(However, I'm not saying that situation necessarily applies to you.<br>
That awaits your determining which chip Netgear stuck you with.)<br>
<br>
<br>
> I'm sorry for the late notice; I wasn't planning to come tomorrow, and<br>
> I originally sent the email about a week ago. Don't worry if you<br>
> don't have time to respond for a while.<br>
<br>
By the way, I should mention that I'm going to post our conversation<br>
onto CABAL's public mailing list, for public benefit. Not a complaint<br>
in any way, but the Linux community's process of documentation and<br>
help works best when it is in our collective discussion forums,<br>
whether those be Web forums or mailing lists such as CABAL's 'conspire'<br>
e-mail mailing list, which (by the way) you can join if you wish to,<br>
here: <a href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br>
<br>
There is only one of me, so I participate in public in order to benefit<br>
the entire Linux community. If I assisted people only in private mail,<br>
then, well, personal assistance is a start but it doesn't scale very<br>
well.<br>
<br>
> Another reason I'm interested to convert to Ubuntu is that other<br>
> people at a company I work for (contractually) use it. Also the Unix<br>
> sys admin at my (regular) job uses it or has used it at home.<br>
<br>
Nothing wrong with Ubuntu. At a fundamental level, though, all<br>
Linux distributions are pretty much alike under the hood. The<br>
ornamentation and the names of some of the glitzy front-end utilities<br>
may differ, but ultimately those talk to always the same pcmcia-cs<br>
utilities such as cardctl and to the same kernel utilities such as<br>
modprobe (which loads, say, the prism54 driver into the running kernel<br>
to drive a Prism GT card).<br>
<br>
At CABAL, we help people with any Linux (or BSD) distribution, and<br>
basically cases like yours come down to, it doesn't make any difference<br>
what the distribution is. You just open a shell, become root, do<br>
'cardctl ident', figure out what the chipset is, make sure you have the<br>
distro package for the necessary driver (or, God help you, ndiswrapper<br>
if necessary), and it then should Just Work (given presence of necessary<br>
drivers and a recent enough kernel).<br>
<br>
Anyone who tells you 'You really should be running distribution [foo]'<br>
is pretty much trying to sell you something. And, hey, isn't that<br>
exactly the error that got people stuck on MS-Windows? ;-><br>
<br>
> The kind of dual monitor I would like to try to configure would be to<br>
> allow different content on each screen.<br>
<br>
Right. Traditional name for that in Linux (but see also below) is<br>
xinerama.<br>
<br>
> The output of lspci is below.<br>
<br>
OK, you have an ATI Radeon RV250 'Mobility FireGL 9000' video chip.<br>
Basically known as 'Mobility 9000', but the specific sub-variant<br>
identifier is RV250, which is the specific chip whereas 'Mobility 9000'<br>
is the chip family. (Lots of Marketing-speak, there.)<br>
<br>
ATI's more than a bit open-source hostile. <sigh> It turns out that the<br>
least-hassle way to get xinerama (display of adjoining images on the two<br>
output displays) might be, and often is, to install ATI's proprietary,<br>
binary-only fglrx driver set for Linux, then follow its instructions.<br>
You should note that xinerama is distinct from 'twinview', in which the<br>
same image is shown on both monitors.<br>
<br>
So, the proprietary driver (which you can download off the Internet and<br>
run as root to install it) is called 'fglrx'. The open-source<br>
alternative driver, which you already have, is called 'radeon'.<br>
<br>
Here's the manpage for the 'radeon' driver.<br>
<a href="http://linux.die.net/man/4/radeon" target="_blank">http://linux.die.net/man/4/radeon</a><br>
<br>
I notice that they have an interesting 'merged framebuffer' (MergedFB)<br>
optional mode of operation for the driver, that sort of replaces<br>
xinerama:<br>
<br>
Option "MergedFB" "boolean"<br>
<br>
This enables merged framebuffer mode. In this mode you have a single<br>
shared framebuffer with two viewports looking into it. It is similar to<br>
Xinerama, but has some advantages. It is faster than Xinerama, the DRI<br>
works on both heads, and it supports clone modes.<br>
<br>
Merged framebuffer mode provides two linked viewports looking into a<br>
single large shared framebuffer. The size of the framebuffer is<br>
determined by the Virtual keyword defined on the Screen section of your<br>
xorg.conf file. It works just like regular virtual desktop except you<br>
have two viewports looking into it instead of one.<br>
<br>
For example, if you wanted a desktop composed of two 1024x768 viewports<br>
looking into a single desktop you would create a virtual desktop of<br>
2048x768 (left/right) or 1024x1536 (above/below), e.g.,<br>
<br>
Virtual 2048 768 or Virtual 1024 1536<br>
<br>
The virtual desktop can be larger than larger than the size of the<br>
viewports looking into it. In this case the linked viewports will scroll<br>
around in the virtual desktop. Viewports with different sizes are also<br>
supported (e.g., one that is 1024x768 and one that is 640x480). In this<br>
case the smaller viewport will scroll relative to the larger one such<br>
that none of the virtual desktop is inaccessible. If you do not define a<br>
virtual desktop the driver will create one based on the orientation of<br>
the heads and size of the largest defined mode in the display section<br>
that is supported on each head.<br>
<br>
The relation of the viewports in specified by the CRT2Position Option.<br>
The options are Clone , LeftOf , RightOf , Above , and Below. MergedFB<br>
is enabled by default if a monitor is detected on each output.<br>
[...]<br>
<br>
Here are pages that detail how to use the radeon driver's MergedFB mode,<br>
or either driver in xinerama mode, giving some working examples:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/MergedFB" target="_blank">http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/MergedFB</a><br>
<a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174" target="_blank">http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174</a><br>
<a href="http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Additional_options_for_the_radeon_driver" target="_blank">http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Additional_options_for_the_radeon_driver</a><br>
<br>
Again, we at CABAL would attempt to walk you through solving that<br>
configuration problem on any distribution. Just because one of those<br>
pages is on an Ubuntu Web forum that is no doubt populated by ernest<br>
young Ubuntu users telling you that you should run it so _they_ can<br>
(in theory) help you doesn't mean we need to drink the Kool-Aid. ;-><br>
<br>
When I say "walk through", I don't mean that solving these setup<br>
problems is necessarily easy. We often just Web-search around to find<br>
promising tips, we trying them out, see what happens, and experiment<br>
until it works or it's time for dinner.<br>
<br>
A larger point to note is that many problems are best solved in person,<br>
because we can check your gear directly to see what chipsets it has<br>
without needing to have a back-and-forth while we tell you how, and<br>
some problems are just easier with hands on for other reasons.<br>
<br>
Anyway, I hope that helps, and that maybe some time you'll be free to<br>
join us on a CABAL Saturday.<br>
<br>
----- End forwarded message -----<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
conspire mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br>
<a href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Margaret Wendall<br>mwendall-at-gmail-dot-com<br>"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" - Juvenal<br><br>