Is there a way to turn on a belkin pci card on a running ubuntu?

hello rekg,

just a question - why did/do you elect yo do that (....'unplug it and then plug it back in while Ubuntu is running'....) ?

pci bus is configured at os load up time pending what it finds connected to it. I'd suggest to abandon this practice - it may cause problems to your pc overall health including the worst - making it a brick.

your card ....'I have a working belkin pci card and it works just fine with ndiswrapper'... is working so I'd propose to just leave it there during the ubuntu session. if you do not want that card in then first end your ubuntu session, shut down ubuntu and the pc then remove the card with the pc power disconnected.

regards,

peter b

Hmm... I didn't know. What do you mean "a brick"?
There is a couple of reasons i do it. Sometimes I leave my laptop on standby and place in in my backpack, whenever i do that i need to unplug the card so it dont break (it already got bent once). Or i unplug the card simply if i need to quickly reset the connection. On windows it only takes a couple of seconds for the system to engage the card if i unplug it while its still running... I was wondering maybe there is some sort of plug-and-play program that im not aware of, or any other option would be awesome.... Thanks.

rekg,

i didn't know that's a pcmcia card. there are some pcmcia cards that can be hot plugged and unplugged without any damage to it and to the pc; I do not know if yours is in this category.

secondly, that's not the whole story, the os must have built in the capacity to autoconfigure - in other words, when a card is unplugged while the os is active, it must 'delete' from its config that particular device, and, conversly, when a device is added (hot plugged) it will be recognized and configured automatically.

I can not give you a definite answer to the above - maybe somebody else could tell you more. What I can tell you though is that a wifi configured usb dongle with ndiswrapper is not autoconfigured when hot unplugged/plugged.

doesn't your laptop have a built in wifi interface ? as far as I'm aware all laptops have it. or, is yours a max b speed interface that makes you use a faster pcmcia wifi interface ? wouldn't be easier to get the internal wifi configured ? the latest 810 intrepid and the upcoming 904 jaunty have a much better wifi support built right in the kernel so there is no need for ndiswrapper.

btw. what ubuntu distro are you using ? maybe an upgrade to the latest distro will help you get (at install time) the internal wifi working without ndiswrapper.

I have in my household on old laptop that has a slow wifi which the kids don't like. so I purchased an inexpensive g speed usb dongle and everything is just humming along nicely - the kids are thrilled and because it sticks out quite a bit they never forgot to take it out when going or coming back from school.

re 'brick', it's just a term for a pc that is totally useless, it can not do anything hence it is a 'brick'.

regards,

peter b