I've been trying out different linux distros on my old Compaq Presarios 1255 laptop for the past few months. While many of these distros lacked various features (for my purposes) or could not install, most all had no problems installing my USB wireless hardware (Trendnet TEW-424UB (v2)).
AntiX is the first distro that has everything that I need and want, and it installed without any problems. HOWEVER, I can't get my USB wireless configured. I'm unfamiliar with the apps provided in AntiX to get setup. Can someone please walk me through the process of configuring my wireless network?
Here are some details: I have downloaded the latest windows drivers.

Log in as root by:"sux root" and entering the root password EX:"root"
Then if you could post the output of inxi -F so we can see what system you have and the information on your usb adapter. Also if you could tell us if your device is seen by running ifconfig. There should be an entry similar to wlan0 to start.

Heres the info:
Edited by rokynji so could be read easier. Try using the code tags in post taskbar under full editor post button tjmck when posting outputs. Friendly reminder and Howdy and Welcome. __{{emoticon}}__

Please post the output of lsusb with the wireless USB that you have plugged in (edit: My bad I did not see it in original post). Post output in code tags (using full editor) so easy to read (per my edit). Also, Old HogsHead suggestion in chat about booting up with usb plugged in is a suggestion you should follow also.

Also with wireless USB plugged in post output of
and also
and to see if any firmware messages present for your usb wireless
I usually use the ifconfig -a command instead of just ifconfig. Because all ifconfig showed was lo and I did not even see a eth0 or eth1 in your readout.

Happy Trails and good luck, Rok
2nd Edit: Durn I am busy editing posts. LOL. Reading up on your Trendnet usb device I see that Debian says that ndiswrapper is the only way to go to install driver and firmware for your usb device. I went to

TRENDware TEW-424UB v2 [0457:0163]


NdisWrapper


{X}

at
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi"
====================================


which leads me to


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/NdisWrapper"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/NdisWrapper"
====================================


To check if ndiswrapper is installed look in synaptic or

If wanting to use a gui for ndiswrapper install ndisgtk. Just follow the Debian Wiki. Ndiswrapper worked ok for me the one time I used it. Fourth post down in thread.


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url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/antix-8-5-asus-eeepc-701sd-rtl8187-solved-t2610-15.html"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/antix-8-5-a ... 10-15.html"
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In the past, the only way that I've been able to install my usb wireless hardware on this old laptop was by using ndiswrapper... So now I've spent the better part of a couple of hours trying to get this wireless hardware to work -- I'm doing this by copying necessary packages to a usb stick on my desktop and then moving the usb stick to my laptop... very time consuming.
This is what I've done so far:
I tried following the Mepis directions at:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Using_Ndiswrapper"
linktext was:"http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php? ... diswrapper"
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, but I could't get past the command modprobe (nothing recognized). Then I tried installing ndisgtk, but that too didn't help me get past modprobe. Then I tried updating ndiswrapper to the latest version of ndiswrapper-???-all.deb using dpkg. But I ran into all kinds of dependancy problems.
It appears that the ndiswrapper module isn't loading at boot... but not sure. It feels like I'm starting to go in circles so I'm wondering if you can help again?
EDIT: I did try depmod -a to get modprobe to work... rebooted but no luck.

I do not know if you noticed my post in chat or not, so I will repeat it. I thought you might run into dependency problems as M8.5 is a fair bit outdated, it is probably best to upgrade to M11. Then at the least there will not be so many dependency issues. Also in M11 there is a little gui for setting up ndiswrapper called"Windows Wireless Drivers" in the menu under system tools, or you could run as root"/usr/sbin/ndisgtk". That makes it very easy to install the wireless driver.

The iso is found here

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released/"
linktext was:"http://www.mepisimo.com/antix/Released"
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Sorry, no I don't follow the chat here... so I missed your comments.

I'm not sure why I chose to try the older version of AntiX... I think I thought that I had an old !586 laptop and 8.5 was optimized for the 586 processor. But I will give the latest !485 version a try...

EDIT: I just discovered why I used 8.5... because the main link from DistroWatch (
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url was:"http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=06011"
linktext was:"http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=06011"
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) links to

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page"
linktext was:"http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page"
====================================
, which states that 8.5 is the"latest release" -- and only points to downloads of =<8.5. (Maybe this could be updated??)

Thanks.

antiX-M11 hasn't gone final yet. Though it is close. In a few days maybe.

So I tried installing M11 and I had problems right from the go... I've transfered this discussion to a forum that seems to be more relevant to the subject: problems-with-m11-installation-t3050.html