RTL 8180 and SUSE 9.0

Dear All,

I've got an older notebook that runs really fine with suse 9.0 (kernel
2.4.21). I know that's rather old - no need to tell me that.

Now I want to connect this notebook to my wlan. I have got a realtek
8180 based pcmcia card but no driver. Unfortunately I have no source for
the kernel so I cant compile anything. Is there any pre-compiled driver
for this thing out there? I already tried suse 10.0 but this version is
that fat my poor old notebook can't keep up with.

Thanks for all help,
Patrick

> I've got an older notebook that runs really fine with suse 9.0 (kernel
> 2.4.21). I know that's rather old - no need to tell me that.
> Now I want to connect this notebook to my wlan. I have got a realtek
> 8180 based pcmcia card but no driver. Unfortunately I have no source for
> the kernel so I cant compile anything. Is there any pre-compiled driver
> for this thing out there? I already tried suse 10.0 but this version is
> that fat my poor old notebook can't keep up with.
>
> Thanks for all help,
> Patrick

The 2.4 series kernel is currently used only for servers and legacy use
because some people just like the 2.4 series more than the 2.6 series
and the 2.4 series does certain things faster than 2.6 series. The 2.6
kernel currently has MUCH MORE drivers included than the current 2.4
kernel.

Go to www.kernel.org and download the newest kernel (2.6.16.x at the
time of writing) and comile it. To compile a new kernel you should
everything that goes on inside your machine. It can be a fairly
complicated job to do if your new to it. Have a look at the
Kernel-HOWTO. I think it's on the www.kernel.org site aswell. As for
you using SUSE9 on an old laptop... For older PC's I'll use Slackware
Linux because of it's simplicity. The whole install is text based for
instance, thus making the install MUCH faster than SUSE's X11 based
setup.

Another thing. I don't use SUSE so I don't know, but you should be able
to download a updated kernel from the SUSE Novell site, or at least do
a system update somewhere on SUSE as it is a much more user friendly
linux than most.

Look for a kernel update on SUSE's website. If you are out of luck
you'll need to compile a new kernel...

Hope this helped
Constant Meiring

Patrick wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I've got an older notebook that runs really fine with suse 9.0 (kernel
> 2.4.21). I know that's rather old - no need to tell me that.
>
> Now I want to connect this notebook to my wlan. I have got a realtek
> 8180 based pcmcia card but no driver. Unfortunately I have no source for
> the kernel so I cant compile anything. Is there any pre-compiled driver
> for this thing out there? I already tried suse 10.0 but this version is
> that fat my poor old notebook can't keep up with.

It works with ndiswrapper. In fact, the windows driver works better under
linux than under windows.

--
Lasse Jensen [fafler at g mail dot com]
Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.

Patrick wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I've got an older notebook that runs really fine with suse 9.0 (kernel
> 2.4.21). I know that's rather old - no need to tell me that.
>
> Now I want to connect this notebook to my wlan. I have got a realtek
> 8180 based pcmcia card but no driver. Unfortunately I have no source for
> the kernel so I cant compile anything. Is there any pre-compiled driver
> for this thing out there? I already tried suse 10.0 but this version is
> that fat my poor old notebook can't keep up with.
>
> Thanks for all help,
> Patrick

Recompile 2.4.21 (or consider a slightly newer one). There is a project
(rt8180-sa2400 or something) that supports most RTL818xL cards. It only
works in 2.4.x versions of linux, so consider that. I am going to try
out the driver at
http://rtl818x.sourceforge.net/
for my rtl8185L-rtl8225 card.
hih,

poly-p man