I have a Realtek internal wireless card in my laptop that I have used with Ubuntu perfectly. I didn't need to install any drivers or anything but for some reason Backtrack doesn't even know that I have a wireless card.

So, my question is Do I have to install a special Linux driver for BT even though Ubuntu works fine with my wireless?

airdriver-ng just gives me a blank line when I try and find my card in Backtrack 3, and BT doesn't give me any kind of notification like "Wireless networks available" the way Ubuntu does.

I'm pretty new to Linux, and am trying to soak up as much information as I can, so I am grateful for any and all help!

have a looksee here: http://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=compati...est_card_to_buy

do you know the model of your card?

can you copy and paste the output of lspci ?

Ok, so the card is a Realtek RTL8187B, which I know that the aircrack-ng site you linked to above said that this card is not as well tested as others. But it worked fine with aircrack-ng in Ubuntu. Ubuntu is installed inside of Windows now on this laptop, but when I try the BT 3 CD I can't get my wireless to work.

I'll get back to you with the ispci output from BT as soon as I am back home. I don't have the BT CD with me right now. I'm thinking that my wireless may have some compatibility problems with Backtrack. I'll post back tomorrow as soon as I have more information.

Thanks for the help Mazuki!

it seems there are a few patches for your chipset, if you scroll up just a bit on the page i linked, it lists the information

be sure you are on 2.6.27+ kernel (which will require an install if you are not) and possibly a driver patch

also, hopefully you get this before you test

the output of ifconfig -a will help (could be iwconfig, i haven't been on BT in months)

but the above is LSPCI not ispci ;)

So, I got the output of LSPCI- not ISPCI ;). And iwconfig for you:

bt ~ # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)

bt ~ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

bt ~ # uname -r
2.6.21.5


I think my biggest problem is the fact that my kernel is only 2.6.21.5 and not 2.6.27+.. My Ubuntu kernel is 2.6.27.14, and my Realtek chpset works fine with it... Now, I'm assuming I can't update the kernel on a live CD. So in keeping with running BT from Live CDs, my best option would be to go with Backtrack 4 even though it is in Beta, right?

Thanks for all your help, Maz!

you can do a kernel update on a livecd, but it's no easy feat, i would recommend just going through the install process and updating the kernel, i still run BT2 even on my old laptop, works just fine for my needs

BackTrack 3 does not support your chipset out of the box you would need to re-master the ISO with the right driver and kernel you are better off using the BackTrack 4 beta it has support for your card out of the box.

Ok, looks like I'll get to do some learning with BT3. I've never done an official install of Linux because I got away with running Ubuntu inside Windows. But I'm looking forward to it. So, I'll just install Backtrack and update the kernel.

I think I'm a bit too much of a noob to go messing around with a beta OS like BT4 anyways...
Thanks a lot for the help, Mazuki. Give me a day or so and I'll probably be back with a question or two about installing. ;)

you could always test it in a virtual machine to see if the update is even worth the trouble, or if it solves it, then after you do it all, you can do it quickly with your actual drive as a dual-boot, also, if you end up fubar, you can just revert to a snapshot

Just got Vmware Workstation up and running and installed Backtrack 3 on a Virtual Machine!!
Took me a little while but I figured it out. Now onward and upward! Time to do a kernel update on the Virtual machine. I'll let you know how that goes!

Thanks for all the help!

I'm one studious minion these days...