Gentoo/XP Dual boot Dell Inspirion

[hesaias]

I finally have my laptop back, and I want to get Gentoo going on it siunce I am the only user in the hhouse. The Desktop was fine for me, but SWMBO did not cozy up to it as I had hoped.

The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 2650. I have a Dell Truemobile 1300 Wireless Card. The Ethernet controler is a 3Com 3C920.

Anyhow, I burtned the Live CD, and attempted an install, but I cannot get the wireless networking up, or for that matter, the LAN at all. No internet connection, nada.

I have searched, and am not finding anything that can help poor blind me get going. I believe if I can get the internet connection going, I will be golden.

Should I be able to connect with the Live CD running?

TIA

[BitJam]

Please give us more details of the exact model number of your laptop and the make and model of the wireless card. The easiest thing would be if we found someone who got it working with the same hardware you have.

You might even want to edit your original post and put the model number in the subject so people will see it when they are skimming through the forums.

For example, I have/had an Inspiron 8200 and the internet connection just worked when I booted off the LiveCD. But this information is useless to you if you have a different model.

[hesaias]

Ahh, I guess that would be helpful. I will edit the original post.

Thanks

[bmartin]

A Google search turned up the following modules for your wireless card: 3c90x,3c59x

I highly recommend using a module built for your card, if one exists. The performance tends to be better and it saves you the hassle of dealing with ndiswrapper.
_________________
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Einstein

[hesaias]

Since I am unable to connect to the internet, I cannot emerge anythin yet, so unless it is already on my HD, i am out of luck. Can I obtain anything before I try the live CD again and place it in a folder on my HD so I can use it t get my connection up an running?

Thanks for the input

[suicideducky]

In the livecd was your internet connection working?
do you have a DHCP client installed? if not i would recommend DHCPCD (assuming you need a dhcp client)
what is the contents of your /etc/init.d/net ?

you can get to it by

[hesaias]

Sorry, I have not done the install yet. I am still running the LiveCD. I want to make sure everything works right before I do the install.

I already tried it once, and had a prolem getting X to run. The fix required me to Emerge some tools, but since I cannot connect, I had to reinstall Windows.

I have no connectivity in the Live CD. FWIW< I have run an Ubintu LiveCD, as well as DreamLinux with the same results, i.e. no connectivity.

I tried to navigate to the network tools, but I do not know the password to get to root, so I cannot do anything that will help me. I did a search in the manual and google and cannot find the password for root o the live cI am just hosed every way I turn.

[knifeyspoony]

You are logged in as root when you boot the Live CD. The root password of the Live CD environment is scrambled on each boot, so it is never known. Once you follow the Handbook instructions to chroot to the Gentoo system installed on your hard drive, you are logged in to that system as root. You should, for future use, issue the passwd command to set the root password on the installed system, but chrooting will always get you in as root without a password.

If you are missing packages you need for certain functionality, try downloading those packages (probably .tar.gz files) to an external disk. Then boot from the Live CD, chroot into your Gentoo install as per the Handbook instructions, and copy the files to /usr/distfiles. I believe emerge will look for its files there before attempting to download anything from the internet.

If there isn't a distro with a Live CD packed with wireless drivers, there oughta be one. Have you tried one of the more commercial ones like Novell Linux?

[JBen]

[knifeyspoony]

Thanks for the correction.