Jim Nielsen wrote:
Man I have tried many things and my greatest success has been that I have a debian 2.6.6 (I think!) that I booted with a net boot install CD which immediately configured networking and finished off by calling in a bunch of stuff over FTP. I used a wired card for it (it is a laptop). I thought I was good but in following a how-to to get and install drivers for my DLINK (acx_100) wireless network card - It seems to me my directory structures don't match what the how-to's indicate. Can I have a short list of baby steps to verify what kernel; if it's fully installed; and what or why it doesn't match what the how-to's indicate. How can I take stock so to speak. In future I would like to learn how to make it run a bit faster cause it is a tad slow gui-wise.
#cat /etc/debian_version will tell you what version of Debian you have. #uname -awill tell you what your kernel version is. Strictly speaking, the kernel is "linux", whereas the kernel plus any GNU utilities, apps, etc you have installed on your box make up "Debian". So the proper name of your OS is "Debian GNU/Linux".
"Fully installed" depends on what you want to do with your box. A minimal system that doesn't do anything but let you login could be "fully installed" by one person's definition. A box with all the bells and whistles might be what another person calls "fully installed". But once you have your networking working, it's very easy with Debian to add Debian packages, thereby adding even more to your "full installation". Probably for you, by "full installation", you mean a box that boots into X and has networking and a web browser and an email client and a few other apps such as OpenOffice.org or KDE or the GIMP, etc. If you're asking if your kernel is fully installed, yep, it is. You're booting into it. Now, you may need the kernel headers and/or source in order to build/add third-party support for stuff that's not supported out of the box. Your wireless card might be in this category.
Typically, if a wireless card doesn't "just work", you've got some work in front of you. Blame the wireless card manufacturer for not releasing the specs to the developers for them to develop free drivers. Someone else may have to address your wireless card issues, but be aware that manufacturers (and D-Link is bad about this) often change the internals of a device without changing the model number, so two different devices with the same model number may be completely different devices under the hood.
Try running "lspci" and see if that gives you any clue as to the chipset used on your D-Link wireless card. It may be something as simple as running "modconf" and adding the appropriate module for that chipset.
-- Kent