USB Wireless Help for a complete Noob

[moransj]

I am a complete noob so please bare with me for anyone that is willing to help. I am an experienced Windows and MacOS user and have a network with 5 pcs in my home. I have a machine that crashed and I don't have the XP discs so I decided to try Linux. I loaded Fedora 15 up and I am now trying to get network internet access via wifi. I have a Belkin N150 router that I would like to get running. I did some googling and found that I need the rt2870 drivers (I think). I went to Ralink and downloaded these drivers but have no idea how to proceed. I am used to working on Macs/PCs with executable files to load drivers.

 

lsubs command generates: 050d:945a Belkin Coomponents

 

 

uname -r generates: 2.6.38.6-26.rcl.fcl5.i686

 

I checked quite a few forums and there are a lot of answers but they all use a huge amount of Linux jargon that I do not understand. If anyone is willing to lend me a step by step hand I would be forever in your debt.

 

 

The Fedora PC is not hardwired to the network so I will need to 'sneaker net' any required files to get it running until I can get this wireless card working.

 

Thanks so much.

 

Scott

[Dungeon-Dave]

Try posting the output of "/sbin/ifconfig -a" here.

 

That works a bit like the "ipconfig" command in windows (and the "-a" works like the "/all" switch in windows)

 

This should identify what interfaces (network adapters) that your machine "sees", showing whether or not the actual wireless is installed and just not configured, or if the modules (drivers) need installing.

[hybrid]

Without having the exact hardware, it's difficult, since we can't run through the process and see if it works, then show you the steps we used to get it working. However, we might be able to take some existing tutorials and break them down so they are easier to follow. It's just more difficult to be certain about success, but it's worth a try if you're up for it.

 

With that in mind, do let us know what you get from /sbin/ifconfig -a as Dave suggested. Hopefully we will find some useful information to start the process.

 

Have you downloaded any files yet from http://www.ralinktech.com/ or elsewhere?

 

I've always found getting wifi to work on Linux is either extremely simple, or quite difficult -- rarely in-between. So this perhaps will be a bit of an adventure!