I have tried many linux distros mandriva,suse,pclinuxos,linux xp, ubuntu just to name a few on my packard bell laptop and not one of them will work with my wireless network card. My first choice of OS is Suse then Mandriva does any one know of a wireless card that will work with linux no problem IE plug in the card install linux then just configure it without using ndiswrapper hopefully

thanks in advance

ps i live in the UK

Boy, i wish i could find a distro too. My wife made me reinstall that other OS because even though we were able to easily install and configure Mandriva 2006 Free on our new Gateway, we never could get the blinkin' wireless to work and had to give up and send for the windows guy. It found and installed the card w / o any problem. Sigh.

Good luck! and have a great weekend!

Thanks for that .
I wonder how many have gone the same rout because of wireles

The problem is that Wireless is a relatviely new technology - Although Linux does have a fair amount of support for nerw technoliges, it can only support hardare properly if the manufacturer chooses to release the specifications for it., otherwise it is s slow process of reverse-engineering to see how it all works.

As far as I can see (and I dont have a wireless card to try it out on) Mandriva's graphical network setup utility can install and set-up ndiswrapper to use your Windows drviers. There is also a toool to confgiure the wireless connection, which I assume handles tihngs like encryption (I haven't been able to see it, because it knows I dont have a wireless card )

Mandriva's tools are usually pretty good, so it might be worth having a look if you haven't already.

D

I have mandiva installed on another pc with a lot of help and searching i got the wireless card working on that 1 but my wireless card prevents the install of mandriva on the laptop it even prevents live CD's running thats why i was thinking of forking out some £s on a new card that is compatable with linux

thanks

Have you tried turning it off in the BIOS (some bioses let you switch things like that off)? It might work once the system is installed.

will look @ that but i doubt it will help but i suppose anything is worth a try

thanks

looked in the bios can't turn it off

thanks

My wireless worked <i>almost</i> out of box under Xandros, but it was built-in wireless on my laptop.

Main thing is I need to manually add my linksys router as a gateway when I boot onto my wireless network (see my blog post about it.)