Paolo wrote: <snipped>
1. lspci -vvv 2. lookup vendor's tech specs/website 3. check www.realtek.com.tw 4. check the *mobile*linux* sites for other's experiences Realtek's wifi chips are not listed in pci_ids in kernel, and they're used to provide blob good only for some ref. kernel version they used to compile it. Very likely your better option will be ndiswrapper.
ok. after a long process of searching for all the ndiswrapper drivers and _still_ trying to get the wireless card to show in dmesg or lspci i decided to put it off for a bit. in tinkering with some other things i issued "lsusb" and saw "8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp" listed.
immediately i jumped around the 'net and somehow found the page: http://www.datanorth.net/~cuervo/rtl8187b/which has a modified version of the realtek driver available. please note that while it did work, i will continue to hope that better support will come in the near future for this card.
so the wireless works and i am busying myself with streamlining some things. thanks everyone for the input, i am sure to throw something else your way soon. :D
Preston -- Arrant Drivel - really, it's just trash... http://www.arrantdrivel.com/