Linux® For Dummies®, 8th Edition

Step 3: Install Your Wireless Card

Installing and configuring a wireless network card in Linux can be a tricky thing. This is one area where many Linux distributions fail miserably.

Linux supports only a limited number of wireless network cards. Actually, it’s not so much the cards that aren’t supported as the chips used inside the cards. One of the biggest headaches in the wireless network card world is that manufacturers often switch the types of chips used in the same model card in different manufacturing runs (revisions). A Linux driver that works fine for card A, revision 1 may not work at all for card A, revision 2.

If Fedora detected your wireless network card during installation, you can use the standard Network Configuration tool to configure it (we walk you through that process in a little bit).

If your wireless network card wasn’t detected, or if you try to install a new wireless network card, you have a few options available to you:

✓	Use the Network Configuration tool to select the new card
✓	Use the Linux tools provided by the card manufacturer
✓	Use the ndiswrapper Linux application

First, try using the Network Configuration tool to see if Fedora recognizes your wireless card and has a driver for it. This process is detailed in Chapter 9. Just follow those steps, and then jump back here if you get your wireless network card working.

If you can’t find your network card in the Network Configuration tool list, you’ll have to do some experimenting. The next best thing is ...