Wifi Switch on Acer Laptop

[raustin]

I have the latest Mandriva (32 bit) and I'm trying to get the wifi working on an acer 5050 laptop (atheros 5007eg card). The card is recognized, but does not function because there is a wifi switch on the front of the laptop that does not turn on.

 

I found the following post to get this working in ubuntu: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512828

 

But the sudo command does not seem to work in mandriva. What is the equivalent command, or will this work at all?

[raustin]

I made it all the way to the last step, but am now stuck. Here are some of my failed attempts:

 

[ace@localhost ~]$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
bash: sudo: command not found
[ace@localhost ~]$ echo "ndiswrapper" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
bash: sudo: command not found
bash: echo: write error: Broken pipe
[ace@localhost ~]$ kdesu modprobe ndiswrapper
[ace@localhost ~]$ echo "ndiswrapper" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
bash: sudo: command not found
bash: echo: write error: Broken pipe
[ace@localhost ~]$ kdesu modprobe ndiswrapper
[ace@localhost ~]$ echo "ndiswrapper" | kdesu tee -a /etc/modules
kdesu: Unknown option '-a'.
kdesu: Use --help to get a list of available command line options.
[ace@localhost ~]$

Edited April 29, 2008 by raustin

[Greg2]

Depending on what version of Mandriva you're using, sudo may not be installed. If it is installed, it's not set up for you by default. You can install it with

urpmi sudo

then set it up with

visudo

However, you need to run those commands as root. In order to do that you simply do

su

enter your password, and hit enter. Then you are able to run the commands you want as root. Since you can su to root, you really don't need sudo. :)

 

Do you understand?

[coverup]

My ThinkPad has an RF switch too. I keep WiFi on all the time. I guess unless you are on a plane, you don't need to worry about it. As for getting WiFi to work, open the terminal, login as root using su, and you won't need sudo anymore. Simply disregard it in all Ubuntu commands that you are trying.

 

Search this forum (possibly, tips and tricks?) to find how to configure ndiswrapper for using with Mandriva.

[ianw1974]

madwifi can work with atheros cards too. Under Mandriva I only ever had success with ndiswrapper. With CentOS I had no problems with madwifi. Strange, but true.

 

If you're using madwifi, it is good to install NetworkManager or perhaps there is a KDE version maybe knetworkmanager and use this to manage your connection. It's much easier this way I found.

 

Also, if the wifi is turned off when you boot the system, the module for controlling your card won't be loaded, and therefore could be contributing to the problem. It's best, I found, to press the button to enable the wifi card once the laptop is turned on, but before booting into Linux. You can do this of course, when the grub/lilo boot loader screen appears.