can't open links in Firefox - MozillaZine Forums - I have (had) this issue.

Real.com: User Supported RealPlayer Download Page

Linux Commands to use a firewire disk under Linux, including an Apple iPod!

Although the chap who did a Red Hat 9.0 Upgrade on Dell Inspiron 8200 found that it just works (although hotplug is twitchy - maybe you have to mount/dismount properly?). Good news all the same!

For my next trick, I will be trying to get a Linux machine (RH9) to talk to an external firewire disk. It looks like the Linux1394: sbp Module might be required?

...and another lead on hostAP. I'm happy that it works, and well, but I had to write a script to configure the card when I inserted it (just a bunch of ifconfig, route and iwconfig commands). However, yanghwee -=:1:How-To-wirelessAP:=-: seems to suggest that you can "Modify '/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts' to run the wirelessLAN configurations you preferred like: SSID, MODE, CHANNEL, etc." and the card will just pick that up when you whack it in the slot. Which would be nice.

.......and it worked! - the NetGear MA401 is now recognised and loaded by the system, and ifconfig for wlan0 takes effect. To get the network properly running, however, the WEP and ESSID need to be set. We accomplish this as per the following example:
You can also use the HostAP driver in Ad-Hoc and Managed (Infrastructure) modes, and it also excels in these modes. Here's an example Ad-Hoc command sequence and output:

# ipconfig wlan0 192.168.1.12
# iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-Hoc
# iwconfig wlan0 essid vortex
# iwconfig wlan0 channel 11

rebecca:~# iwconfig wlan0

wlan0 IEEE 802.11-b ESSID:"vortex"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.462GHz Cell: 02:06:07:E7:F7:DA
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power:-8 dBm Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:92/92 Signal level:-40 dBm Noise level:-100 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


As a foot note, I also found the interesting Securing Debian Manual - Before and during the installation article whilt surfing. Might look into it sometime ;)

Loads of stuff:
First this posting from a guy who has rolled his own debian kernel with hostAP and then published the results as packaged deb files. Cool, but not the safest or most reliable option, so I'm puttin it on the back burner for now.
Next (and much more hopeful) is this, which is a hostap-modules package available in the debian unstable tree. I fancy this is the way forwards, so bear with me, as this is going to be a long one.......

1. Add a unstable tree source mirrors to my sources.list file.
2. Run apt-get update to get the package lists. This article was very useful here.
3. Search the apt-cache for hostap-modules to find some for a suitable kernel, and decide on hostap-modules-2.4.23-1-586tsc (as this looks like the pentium classic kernel type we used before).
4. Install the appropriate kernel and modules: apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.23-1-586tsc hostap-modules-2.4.23-1-586tsc kernel-pcmcia-modules-2.4.23-1-586tsc hostap-utils wireless-tools hostapd.
5. Mess about with dependencies until the packages all install (libc6, initrd-tools and modutils were notable dependencies). This was achieved as per the article referenced in step 2, using apt-get -t unstable install (package). There were many stops and starts as GDM was killed off, daemons were restarted manually, I checked module versions were not left over from old kernels, the libretto hung for ages trying to delete non-existent modules directories etc. but eventually we got there!
6. Reboot, with fingers crossed and wired ethernet card still in place.
7. Verify wired ethernet is good (it is) and swap out for wireless card.......

So, back to Jason's Web Thingy: HostAP 2003-10-19 and tryiong HostAP, I am doing the following:
1 - Install kernel source (apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.18).
2 - uncompressed and unpacked kernel source in /usr/src/ (this takes quite a while on a P120!)
3 - downloaded and uncompressed and unpacked all HostAP files (driver, utils and daemon).
4 - For the driver, modified the makefile to point at the kernel source
5 - Ran 'make' and failed:
Makefile:20: /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18/.config: No such file or directory
Makefile:38: WARNING: No kernel PCMCIA support found and PCMCIA_PATH is not defined
Makefile:45: WARNING: Linux wireless extensions, CONFIG_NET_RADIO, not enabled in the kernel
make: *** No rule to make target `/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18/.config'. Stop.
6 - did some more research....... :(

SuSE Linux english discussion: Re: [SLE] Wireless Netgear MA401RA - this is very like my problem.......

installed hotplug on the libretto - useful for hotswap of pcmcia cards :)

......nothing happened after all the steps below. Bummer.
Looks like I'll be trying the HostAP stuff after all.

Wireless LAN at Home Howto - at last, one written for a noddy like me!

Here's what I'm trying (note that kernel and modules used are CPU-specific; the ones below are for pentium-classic; pentium-pro or later should use different stuff):
1 - Installed wireless tools (apt-get iinstall wireless-tools).
2 - Checked pcmcia-cs (apt-get install pcmcia-cs informed me that I already have it and it is latest version available from the stable tree).
3 - Installed 2.4 kernel (apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18-1-586tsc) and associated PCMCIA modules (kernel-pcmcia-modules-2.4.18-1-586tsc) simultaneously.
4 - Follow instructions regarding configuration of LILO to use initrd (modify lilo.conf so that "image=/vmlinuz" stanza now includes "initrd=/initrd.img", then debian helpfully creates appropriate symlink and tests LILO). Clench, reboot......... and breathe a sigh of relief when the system boots again.
5 - Verify; PCMCIA wired-ethernet is still OK, and running kernel is 2.4.18-1-586tsc. Good. Debian with a 2.4 kernel :)
6 - Follow instructions as per linked article above to configure etc/pcmcia files.
7 - Shutdown libretto and boot with WLAN card in, and.......

Debian Kernel Configuration - for a Linksys card, but might be useful all the same.......

Jason's Web Thingy: Rocking on with HostAP 2002-10-12: "Debian" - this looks useful, but I'm tired and struggling now - I have to recompile my kernel to use wireless? - I never had to with Red Hat on my old work laptop.

Host AP driver for Intersil Prism2/2.5/3 - this is the HostAP driver that is appropriate for a NetGear MA401, apparently.

I have recently got Debian "Woody" 3.0r2 running on the Libretto 70ct (P120, 32MB, 1.1GB), and it rocks! Obviously, it's not too fast, but I use Window Maker and only need one or two simple GUI apps, and it will do :)

Install was achieved as follows (simplified):
1 - Remove Hard Disk from Libretto and place in the ancient Satellite (P100, 32MB) which has a CDROM and Floppy drive.
2 - Boot the Satellite from the Debian boot floppy disks (boot from CD is not supported by the BIOS) and perform a CD install of the Base system, including PCMCIA networking with a 3Com PCMCIA 10Mb/s card.
3 - Shut down the Satellite and put the HDD and 3Com PCMCIA NIC back in the Libretto.
4 - Boot the libretto and manually configure IP settings for eth0.
5 - Remove CD entries from the apt sources.list file (making sure that the ftp and http deb repositories were still there).
6 - Refresh apt-get and run dselect to select and install packages from the web.
7 - Reboot and install and configure Window Maker with GDM, and hey presto - a networked Libretto running Linux with a GUI :) - I am really liking debian for old Tosh laptops.

The real benefit of the Libretto, other than it's size, is it's quiet operation. What I really want to do is to use it as a web radio that I can hook up to my Hi-Fi so I can listen to cool tunes from Groove Salad in my front room without running an overblown noisy PC.

My real problem is that I don't want to run messy CAT5 cabling through my house to supply the web connection, so I am presently wrestling with getting a NetGear MA401 PCMCIA wireless NIC to work - I do like a challenge :)

Several things I have read on groups seem to suggest that the hostAP driver is what is required, but that in itself is a dark art as far as I'm concerned, so the article on installing
Debian GNU/Linux on the Dell Latitude C400 is of particular interest, as is this post.

More to follow, I suspect.......