Installing RealTek WIFI Dongle in R31

[jimwg]

Greetings and a plea!


Please pardon length of this post but I desperately need to set-up a flea market steal Linux Mint Maya Thinkpad R31 as an emergency backup due home theft of my R60e and many other personal items. I can't simply can't afford to spend past wallet change on any computer related items at this time and the ethernet route isn't functional. A MacMaven found me a "free" USB wifi dongle by RealTek I believe and also dropped off a file ( rtl8187_linux_26.1025.0328.2007 ) of drivers and the READ-ME which I simply can't make heads or tails of. Ruefully I'm no techie nor have the time now to grasp these concepts. Is there any short-cut or easier way to install this dongele or get my R31 online?

Thanks for any assist!!!


RealTek RTL8187 Wireless LAN driver for
Fedora Core 2/3/4/5, Debian 3.1, Mandrake 10.2/Mandriva 2006,
SUSE 9.3/10.1/10.2, Gentoo 3.1, etc.
- Support Client mode for either infrastructure or adhoc mode
- Support WEP and WPAPSK connection

< Component >
The driver is composed of several parts:
1. Module source code
stack.tar.gz
drv.tar.gz

2. Script ot build the modules
makedrv

3. Script to load/unload modules
wlan0up
wlan0down

4. Script and configuration for DHCP
wlan0dhcp
ifcfg-wlan0
4. Supplicant source code:
wpa_supplicant-0.4.9.tar.gz

5. Example of supplicant configuration file:
wpa1.conf

< Installation >
Runing the scripts can finish all operations of building up modules
from the source code and start the nic.
1. Build up the drivers from the source code
./makedrv

2. load the driver module to kernel and start up nic
./wlan0up

< Set wireless lan MIBs >
This driver uses Wireless Extension as an interface allowing you to set
Wireless LAN specific parameters.

Current driver supports "iwlist" to show the device status of nic
iwlist wlan0 [parameters]
where
parameter explaination [parameters]
----------------------- -------------
Show available chan and freq freq / channel
Show and Scan BSS and IBSS scan[ning]
Show supported bit-rate rate / bit[rate]
Show Power Management mode power

For example:
iwlist wlan0 channel
iwlist wlan0 scan
iwlist wlan0 rate
iwlist wlan0 power

Driver also supports "iwconfig", manipulate driver private ioctls, to set
MIBs.

iwconfig wlan0 [parameters] [val]
where
parameter explaination [parameters] [val] constraints
----------------------- ------------- ------------------
Connect to AP by address ap [mac_addr]
Set the essid, join (I)BSS essid [essid]
Set operation mode mode {Managed|Ad-hoc}
Set keys and security mode key/enc[ryption] {N|open|restricted|off}

For example:
iwconfig wlan0 ap XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
iwconfig wlan0 essid "ap_name"
iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-hoc
iwconfig wlan0 mode essid "name" mode Ad-hoc
iwconfig wlan0 key 0123456789 [2] open
iwconfig wlan0 key off
iwconfig wlan0 key restricted [3] 0123456789

< Getting IP address >
After start up the nic, the network needs to obtain an IP address before
transmit/receive data.
This can be done by setting the static IP via "ifconfig wlan0 IP_ADDRESS"
command, or using DHCP.

If using DHCP, setting steps is as below:
(1)connect to an AP via "iwconfig" settings
iwconfig wlan0 essid [name] or
iwconfig wlan0 ap XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

(2)run the script which run the dhclient
./wlan0dhcp
or
dhcpcd wlan0
(Some network admins require that you use the
hostname and domainname provided by the DHCP server.
In that case, use
dhcpcd -HD wlan0)

< WPAPSK >
WPA_SUPPLICANT help the network to communicate under the protection of WPAPSK
mechanism

(1)Unpack source code of WPA supplicant:
tar -zxvf wpa_supplicant-0.4.9.tar.gz
cd wpa_supplicant-0.4.9

(2)Create .config file:
cp defconfig .config

(3)Edit .config file, uncomment the following line:
#CONFIG_DRIVER_IPW=y.

(4)Build WPA supplicant:
make
If make error for lack of <include/md5.h>, install the openssl lib(two ways):
1. Install the openssl lib from corresponding installation disc:
Fedora Core 2/3/4/5(openssl-0.9.71x-xx), Mandrake10.2/Mandriva10.2(openssl-0.9.7x-xmdk),
Debian 3.1(libssl-dev), Suse 9.3/10.0/10.1(openssl_devl), Gentoo(dev-libs/openssl), etc.
2. Download the openssl open source package from www.openssl.org, build and install it.

(5)Edit wpa_supplicant.conf to set up SSID and its passphrase.
For example, the following setting in "wpa1.conf" means SSID
to join is "BufAG54_Ch6" and its passphrase is "87654321".
network={
ssid="BufAG54_Ch6"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP WEP104 WEP40
psk="87654321"
priority=2
}

(6)Execute WPA supplicant (Assume 8187 and related modules had been
loaded):
./wpa_supplicant -D ipw -c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 &

[RealBlackStuff]

Sorry to hear about your loss.

That driver might be too old, try what they suggest here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1667140
http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-bugs ... 20217.html

(I have no Linux knowledge)