Damn Small Linux - Not!

roguenorm · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

Hey Folks.
I just started playing with DSL and DSL-N. I'm running the live CD's on an IBM thinkpad Z380 with a Linksys WPC11 v4 wireless b card.

The card works just fine under DSL 2.3 using the WinXP driver and ndiswrapper (as per other postings from the DSL forum).

When I run DSL-N a2 however, it doesn't work.
When I set up the card using ndiswrapper, it tells me that the connection failed.
When I look at ndiswrapper -l , I see that the driver (rtl8180.sys) is present, and the hardware is present. But nothing is showing up under ifconfig except the local loopback.

When I check dmesg I see :
loadndiswrapper failed (1536)

Anybody have any suggestions or ideas for the difference twixt DSL and DSL-N on this.

One thing is that I was messing around with the DSL-N for a while with different other drivers and saving the settings on exit. Could some of that be screwing anything up? It didn't look like it was actually saving the settings, but you never know...

Thanks
Norm

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

Someone else pointed out some issue with ndiswrapper.
I really need to buy a card so I can test with.
Each time I added ndiswrapper to DSL, I had a borrrowed card to test with.

roguenorm · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

I just noticed that the the cardmgr process does not seem to recognize the WPC11 card.
no details, as I haven't had time to play with it anymore. Has anyone else had problems with the pcmcia cardmanager in DSL-N vs DSL?

Norm

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

Looks like I have solved the ndiswrapper issue.
Look for it in the next cut, a4.

roguenorm · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

I still have to jump through a couple of hoops.
I find that I have to first use the dslpanel ndiswrapper and have it fail.
then manually use iwconfig to set the mode, key, and essid for my AP.
Then use ifconfig up.

At this point, things still don't work, but if I go back into the dslpanel ndiswrapper and readd the info there, suddenly poof, I have a net connection!

Am I doing things the silly way? (I'm unfamiliar with ndiswrapper etc)

Secondly, I've done a frugal install to hard drive. Where can I save the bootlocal.sh and myndis.sh files so they will be used on bootup? The one in /opt always gets written from the KNOPPIX image. I've been browsing the documentation, but I'm still fuzzy on how the frugal/ramdisk thing is working (i.e. it doesn't look like anything got copied to my hard drive)

Thanks
Norman

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

A couple of things come to mind...

When your network card is not natively supported, i.e., at boot time, then you should add the boot time option of [b]nodhcp[/b]. This way you won't have a pump (dhcp client) running. which could cause the initial failure that you observed.

Second, when using ndiswrapper, it is best to copy the [b].info[/b] and [b].sys[/b] files from Windows to your home directory. This will simply your backup. Otherwise you would also have to mount the windows partition and place that in the bootlocal.sh. This would end up marry'ing you to Windows. If you placed a copy of these files and used a pendrive for backup you could have a nomadic system and actually that the wireless card and backup to another computer. Also by default the home/dsl directory is included in the backup/restore process.

To start the backup/restore process, click the DSLpanel and click Backup/Restore and enter a device to use, could be a hard disk partition, e.g., [b]hda3[/b] or a pendrive, [b]uba2[/b], or even a floppy.

roguenorm · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

Robert, thanks for the tips yesterday. I had found the backup/restore thing just before I went to bed last night, and so that nicely solves the saving the configuration.

I tried your idea of using the nodhcp cheat but it didn't change anything.

Playing around with it, I have been able to get my wireless working on bootup using the following bootlocal.sh:

#!/bin/bash

sudo /usr/local/bin/ndiswrapper.sh /cdrom/wpc11/net8180.inf wlan0 ROGUE hexkey 2>&1 >/dev/null

sudo /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 key open hexkey
sudo /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
sudo /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid ROGUE
sudo /sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up

sudo /usr/local/bin/ndiswrapper.sh /cdrom/wpc11/net8180.inf wlan0 ROGUE hexkey 2>&1 >/dev/null

Notice, I have to run ndiswrapper twice. The first time, it fails (and I'm waiting an extra minute during bootup for that to happen). But that first time needs to fail so that iwconfig has a wlan0 to play with. Then I set up wlan0 using iwconfig and rerun ndiswrapper.
Voila, internet connection.

I shouldn't have to run ndiswrapper first in order to initilize the wlan0, but I don't know how else to do it at the moment.

Any help or suggestions?

Thanks
Norm

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

I think the firsr run of ndiswrapper.sh is causing a pump -i wlan0 which it is apparently not ready for:

I would try something along these lines and forgo the ndiswrapper.sh script completely.

#!/bin/bash
ndiswrapper -i /cdrom/wpc11/net8180.inf
modprobe ndiswarpper
iwconfig wlan0 key open hexkey
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
iwconfig wlan0 essid ROGUE
pump -i wlan0

Note: the /opt/bootlocal.sh script runs as root so the sudo should not be necessary.

roguenorm · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

roberts,

I tried running the script as you suggested. If I don't pump before running the iwconfig commands, They give back errors since there doesn't seem to be a wlan0 set up for them to configure.

Is it the modprobe ndiswrapper command that is supposed to produce the wlan0?

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

Yes. Typically the modprobe will produce the device.

It is usually after the modprobe that I use iwconfig to see the new unconfigured device in order to know the device name to issue the other iwconfig commands.

So, not sure in your case. But if you have it working then it is good.

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

Interestingly enough, I got hold of one of those Linksys WPC11 v4 cards
Using the Windows 2000 driver v173 from
It works as I have described previously.

1. ndiswrapper -i NET8180.INF
2. ndiswrapper -l
3. modprobe ndiswrapper
4. iwconfig --- commands to configure your network --
5 pump -i wlan0

Works OK.

If you are not using v173 then it maybe some initial conflict with your hardware