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help with cd and pcmcia card

So I have an extremely old laptop (made in the late 90s) and I just installed Vector LInux Light on it. Sadly, there is no wireless internet already in the laptop, so I'm thinking about getting a PCMCIA wireless adapter card (btw, any suggestions on what type to get would also be helpful) and I'm not sure if I would need to install the PCMCIA with a cd or if Vector will automatically recognize it or if I have to do something else? This is my first time with linux so I'm completely lost.

Also, my cd-rom drive doesn't seem to recognize when I put cds in, is there a solution to this?

Thanks!

Comments

  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    The pcmcia devices should e automatically recognized, the only question is if the wifi chipset is supported in the kernel of if you need to install drivers. if you can find a atheros based wifi card then it will be auto-recognized.

    By default the cd-rom does not load all CDs, it requires additional packages to prompt the user when a disk is inserted, prompting you to mount it. I do not know the specifics of your distro so I do not know if that function is built in, but if it is not then you can try to mount the cdrom manually.
  • gearz
    gearz Posts: 2
    Thanks for all the help, but how do i mount the cdrom manually? Also, how do I install the drivers necessary without an internet connection?
  • marc
    marc Posts: 647
    gearz wrote:
    Thanks for all the help, but how do i mount the cdrom manually? Also, how do I install the drivers necessary without an internet connection?

    Usually is something like
    mount /dev/cdrom
    

    Or if your distro hasn't set this up:
    mkdir /mnt/cdrom
    mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
    

    Beware that you'll need to be root for this to work

    Regards

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