There is only 1 CD-ROM for Ubuntu installation which is awsome, considering that when I bought the COMPAQ 5 years ago DVD drive was kind of luxury so I do not have it, this is the only way I could have gone to install the system. I had considered network installation of SuSe, but I do not have a network cable long enough to go through the stairs from the first floor. So Wi-Fi has to work or I will be totally screwed - the hard drive is only as big as 30GB (well, back in 2001...) and I had to wipe off the old Win2k.
I started only to find out that during the years the optical drive on the machine has silently died somehow without a trace. I tried everything to have no effect. Then I realized that 4 years ago I bought another drive and it must be sitting somewhere in the house because I do not remember selling it or giving it away. I was happy to find it in the closet and now I have a working optical drive on the old PC.
Ubuntu installation is not pretty but it is good. The process is very smooth and straightforward. At the end the only thing that did not work out of the box is Wi-Fi. Since I have been using this $10 D-Link DWL-122 which was not popolar to start with, I sort of expected some hardship. But the following article in Ubuntu support pages turned out to be very valuable and accurate. I cannot afford to lose them by saving the URL only. So I am c/p the entire sections I have used below.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/prism2_usb
WifiDocs/Driver/prism2 usb
1. Driver Information
Driver Name: prism2_usb / Prism II
Module Name: prism2_usb
First of all, install the linux-wlan-ng package to use this driver! It is included on all Ubuntu 6.06 CDs.
NOTE: The linux-wlan-ng is only on the CD, not on the hard drive after installation. So I loaded the CD from the Synaptic Package Manager and then install it from there.
2. Support Channels
See also WifiDocs/Device/DWL-122 and WifiDocs/Device/NetgearMA111 for help on configuration.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/NetgearMA111
WifiDocs/Device/NetgearMA111
Purpose
This howto will setup wireless networking using the Netgear MA111 wireless USB adapter or many other wireless USB adapters which use the WifiDocs/Driver/prism2_usb driver. This card is now pretty easy to setup on Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy) and 6.06 (Dapper), as the driver module is present in the kernel.
There are apparently two versions of the card floating around, this method will work only with the v1 (or no version number) of the Netgear MA111 card. See the ![[WWW]](https://help.ubuntu.com/htdocs/ubuntu/img/u-www.png)
vendor product page.
Check driver is loaded
First, plug in your MA111 USB wireless card and see if it is detected and the appropriate modules are loaded. Open up a terminal and execute the following command
$ lsmod | grep prism
prism2_usb xxxxx 0
ieee80211 xxxxx 1 prism2_usb
usbcore xxxxx 3 prism2_usb,ohci_hcd
If you see an output similiar to this, your card has been detected and appropriate modules loaded. If not, you must manually load the driver by issuing the following command
sudo modprobe prism2_usb
Next, we must alias the wlan0 to the prism2_usb device. In Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy), do this by adding the following to /etc/modprobe.conf. In Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) do this by adding the following to /etc/modprobe.d/wlan (only if needed):
alias wlan0 prism2_usb
Install needed package
Since the driver does not support wireless extensions completely, we have to install the following package. You will find this package on the install cd. If you installed from the Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) Desktop (live) cd, you will have to add the repository on that cd to your package manager's list. It is as simple as inserting the cd and clicking on the box that appears on your ubuntu desktop to do this. Alternatively, from the command line, you can run
sudo apt-cdrom add
If you installed your ubuntu system from the Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) alternate (install) cd, these packages are already part of your repository list, and you do not have to add them to your list again.
sudo apt-get install linux-wlan-ng
Edit interfaces file
Open up the file /etc/network/interfaces in your favorite text editor. Add the following lines to it (replace your_essid and xx:xx:xx:xx:xx with your network name and WEP key):
auto wlan0 # Remove or comment out if you don't want it to start at boot
iface wlan0 inet dhcp # If you want dhcp for wireless. Otherwise replace "dhcp" by "static" and see "man interfaces"
wireless_mode managed
wireless_essid your_essid
# Comment out the lines below if you don't have wireless encryption. See /usr/share/doc/linux-wlan-ng/README.Debian
wireless_enc on
wlan_ng_key0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
wlan_ng_authtype opensystem
Ready to go
Unplug/replug your wireless card or reboot your system. After it boots up, check if your wireless works. The network connection should be made automatically every time you insert the device. You may try to enable the connection by hand by issuing the following commands:
sudo ifup wlan0
This should ensure that you are connected to the network.
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