Re: talk about going around robinhood's barn...

[Mike Padlipsky <the map alum mit edu>]

At 05:31 AM 3/14/2007, Darren Albers wrote:

> Ok in that long email I was not
> able to determine exactly what issue
> you are having so let me try and break it down.
>
> You have two wireless cards:
> 1) Broadcom Mini-PCI
> 2) Some USB device
>
> Network Manager sees the MiniPCI device but not the USB device?
>
> Can you post your /etc/network/interfaces (commenting out any
> keys)
>
> and post the type of chipset in the usb device?
>
> Please make sure you include the list on the reply so others can see
> the same information.
>
> Thanks

Sorry about the length.  I find writing cathartic.  By way of
apology, I'll even use the shift key this time and use html to make the
most important points stand out since even this isn't as short as you
might like it to.  (And I'll use my alternate ".sig",
which might help explain the over-writing tendencies.)

However, my current .../interfaces is irrelevant.  I did a clean
reinstall to clear away the tangles I'd gotten myself into, and haven't
even reinstalled NetManager yet because I'm trying to find out if it'll
be worth my while to do so.

I am sure I had nothing but "lo" active during several of the
NetManager attempts, though, and it still only seemed to be noticing eth1
(and presumably eth0) but not eth2.

And while I'm willing to fire up the notebook to get the exact chip info
if it turns out that that might be relevant, all I really want to know
is

Can NetManager in principle deal with two WiFi devices
in the same machine?

If so, what's the trick to make it do so?

(For example, should the USB device only be inserted after
NetManager's had its first shot at things?)

Sure, if might be the case that the answer to the first question is Yes,
but only if it "knows about" both; and the answer to the second
is No trick at all if it does know about both, it'll just show them to
you, so tell me exactly what you've got.

But if that's the case, I think I already know it doesn't know about both
-- and that the one it thinks it knows about has changed subtly on its
way into the Lenovo 3000 N100 under Vista, since it also didn't work
before I plugged the USB device in -- and I'll just wait for
"Feisty".

(Well, unless there turns out to be some source[s] I couldn't find for
getting the appropriate driver[s] so NetManager would know about
both.  Or even just about the built-in.)

Please believe me, I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to
conserve what little energy I have left after 3+ weeks of not being able
to get "Edgy" to do wireless on that stupid machine I wish I
hadn't been tempted to buy because it seemed I was getting a lot of good
iron for the money.

thanks, and
cheers, map

Michael A. Padlipsky
8011 Stewart Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-670-4288
< http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/mapstuff.html >

__________________
Mr. Padlipsky is the author of The Elements of Networking Style and Other Essays and Animadversions on the Art of Intercomputer Networking, "the world's only known Constructively Snotty computer science book" (©1985, reprinted ©2000).