Networking :: Wireless Network card



I have tried using ndiswrapper to get a standard wireless network card to run. when I enter the location of the driver ....../wn6201.inf I just get a failed notice. None of the lights shine on the modem, nothing. I need a clear step by step instruction to help me, but cannot find one anywhere.

Any thoughts

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I have tried using ndiswrapper to get a standard wireless network card to run.

Heh, is there a such thing as standard wireless card? Check the wifi cards page on the wiki. Check the ndiswrapper site and see if your card is compatible. You didn't say which card or version, or which chip it uses (usually says when you do lspci).

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I need a clear step by step instruction to help me

Presuming you copied the inf and sys files from your CD or from the zip you found on your card vendor's site and that your device node is wlan0 and you use dhcp...
1. Got root? sudo su
2. Make sure you don't have anything loaded for ndiswrapper: ndiswrapper -l
That will show if you have any drivers loaded and list hardware if there is a driver loaded.
3. Load your inf: ndiswrapper -i /path/to/your.inf
4. Repeat 2 to see that it loaded.
5. If it did: modprobe ndiswrapper
6. Config wifi: iwconfig wlan0 essid whatever
7. Check iwconfig to make sure the settings are correct. Change if needed.
8. Start dhcp: pump -i wlan0

You can automate a lot of this by using the ndiswrapper tool in the setup menu and setting up scripts (myndis) so you don't have to go through the process every time. Not all cards are equally supported via ndiswrapper so you may have a lot of success (hopefully) or limited success. If you use WEP or WPA, you'll need to set your keys up as well.

I have a BCM 94311 card that uses the bcmwl5.inf driver, the closest thing on the wiki is "Broadcom 4318: Works with ndiswrapper and bcmwl5.inf driver."  The thing is NDISwrapper was unable to load the driver for my card when using the GUI tool provided.  Running it via command line this is what I did:
#ndiswrapper -i /home/dsl/bcmwl5.inf
Installing bcml5:
Forcing Parameter IBSSGMode 10 to IBSSGMode 12 (repeats 6 times)
#ndiswrapper -l
Installed Drivers:
bcml5    driver installled, hardware present
#modprobe ndiswrapper

I tried to scan for the essid of the wireless network to connect to and it keep giving me an error so I eventaully ran iwconfig and this is what it had to say
#iwconfig
lo  No wireless extensions present

eth0 No wireless extensions present

wlcardconfig had this to say
"No wireless network card found"

Anyone have a clue?

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Anyone have a clue?


Plenty of them -- kernel 2.4 only has so many WE patches available. My Broadcom-based card gives warnings related to that because the kernel is presently patched through WE16 (max in 2.4 is 18). As a result of the limitations with WE/2.4, you likely won't have full use of your drivers even if they successfully load. Scanning is one of the things that's limited in function -- doesn't work at all with my card. (All of this is why DSL is undergoing some significant changes so "new" hardware is better supported going forward.)

What happens when you run "iwconfig wlan0" after modprobe ndiswrapper?

Ok here are my results:

#iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 No such device

#iwconfig wlan1
wlan1 No such device

#ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5  driver installed, hardware present

I have upgraded DSL to 4.2.5 and I can try with that...

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