Can't See Any Wireless Networks

[Teapot Philosopher]

I have tried installing Sabayon but since that failed I have since tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Neither of them seem to pick up on ANY wireless networks. Since Kubuntu also uses KNetworkManager I was hoping someone here could help me instead of me signing up to another forum.

Basically, no wireless networks appear at all in either of the LiveCDs on my new laptop. I installed Kubuntu and still no networking. The CDs are in perfect condition. Windows Vista picks up on the networks fine, but I have no intention of using Vista. I want Linux. Specifically Sabayon, but so far that doesn't seem to be happening. The only reason I'm able to make this post on the laptop is because I'm dual booting. I would give you more information about the system I'm using but I have no idea what the info actually is (I'm a noob). So, if you're looking more information, I'm gonna need to be told how to get it. Lol.

[xlnagla]

I'm taking it that ubuntu doesn't support your wireless card - if Windows does, just access the properties menu under your wireless network connections, and find out what wireless card you have. You may have to install a new "driver" (similar to the requirement of installing drivers in windows), and you can find information on that in the wiki of your distrobution. That being said, what's probably easier than getting it to work in Ubuntu (or KUbuntu) is seeing if it will work with another distro... getting unsupported hardware to work is never fun, especially if you're new at it. What went wrong in the Sabayon installation?

[Teapot Philosopher]

Meh. Sabayon got past the "verbose mode" part, and just froze about 2/3 into the booting of it.

Thanks for the info,
Matt

EDIT
I have found info regarding the network. Which one am I aiming to change?
Realtek 8185 Extensible 802.11b/g Wireless Device
NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller

I also found the option to disable things.

There's an install wizard to Add Hardware and when I go to Network Adapters it tells me about all these things such as (only a few examples)...
.Eicon Diva Server 2FX
.Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
.Bluetooth Device (RFCOMM Protocol TDI)

Any help is appreciated.
Matt

[xlnagla]

In my experience, that freeze is caused by a problem when attempting to configure your graphics card - they've changed the method used for that (I believe) in 3.4f, so you may have luck trying again with 3.4f. Again, It's difficult, but I believe that you can get your Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection working under Linux (if you actually have this and windows just didn't screw up detection) with much more reliability than your Realtek 8185 Extensible 802.11b/g Wireless Device. Info on installing PRO/Wireless devices can be found here:
http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/
You're in luck, they've got a whole project on it.

for your Realtek, look here:
http://www.opendrivers.com/freedownload ... nload.html (I do not personally trust this site, but it's the best I found, and other drivers from this site have worked well before)

best of luck,
xlnagla

by the way, all that disabling and installing drivers that you've found you may be able to do in windows will not work for linux. Any software modifications you do in windows will never apply to Linux unless you've been virtualizing it in QEMU or something.

[Teapot Philosopher]

Right. Then that makes almost this entire thread pointless. So, I still have no idea what to do in order to get this working.
I guess I'll have to wait until 3.4f miniEdition comes out to get Sabayon, and then I have the problem of my networking which "is never fun". I'm willing to put the work in to get it working, if anyone can help me out, but a newb trying to modify a bunch of things he doesn't understand without any help doesn't strike me as being very safe. So, still looking for some help people!

Oh, and by the way, I still haven't found the info I need in the wiki for my distro. Oddly. (Just a reminder, it's Kubuntu)

Thanks again,
Matt

EDIT
Got annoyed about the whole thing and tried Mandriva. That didn't work out too well, because it also doesn't support my wireless... So, top tip to anyone who wants to use Linux and is buying a new computer. Buy an old computer! It worked well on my mother's which is about a year old.