For reasons I can only summarize as “self-loathing masochism,” I decided to install linux on an old laptop of mine.* I threw a virtual dart at a google search and ended up installing SimplyMEPIS 6.0. I have posted this question on some linux boards (including the MEPIS forums), but responses are slow and off-topic, so I thought I’d try here.
The first thing I noticed that wasn’t working properly in linux was my wireless network card. After many hours of reading, rebooting, blacklisting drivers, modprobing and ultimately failing, I stumbled upon a driver patch that may (but probably will not) fix my issue. The problem is that you have to compile the driver after you patch it, and compiling the driver requires you to link to the linux kernel build files, which I believe are non-existent on packaged versions of linux (like MEPIS).
I have no desire to compile my own linux kernel, so I was hoping for a workaround. I think compiling the kernel creates 4 .deb files, only 1 of which is required for a working system, but all 4 of which are required to compile certain files (like drivers).
My questions are: 1) Am I on the right track? Are the .deb files the missing link for creating the kernel build files and compiling the driver? 2) Is there a simple way to acquire and install the default .deb files (I’m using the 2.6.15 kernel that comes prepackaged with MEPIS 6.0), or do I have to suck it up and compile a kernel?
Thanks in advance.
*Actually, the real reason I installed linux, in case it becomes relevant, is curiosity about network security. I have a wireless router which I “secured” by 1) MAC address filtering, 2) turning off SID broadcasting, and 3) 128 WEP encryption (my router is a bit dated and that’s as good as it gets – yes, I know I should update). I had read about how easy it is to bypass all of these protections and decided I needed to see for myself just how insecure my network was. It appears that many of the better tools for testing security are not windows compatible, so I installed linux.