Wi card no worky.....
Forum: Networking
Topic: Wi card no worky.....
started by: thebufenator
Posted by thebufenator on April 01 2005,15:15
My wireless card doesn't work with DSL.....Is therea way to try and set it up?
I am new to this.....so be easy on me
Also, I used my wired card to get apt-get, and gcc
how do I get the stdio.h, math.h, etc lib files?
Posted by scotf on April 02 2005,02:26
Hey Bufenator,I too have had a lot of trouble with wireless cards ... not just DSL but Fedora as well.
It depends quite a bit on the network card you are trying to use ...
1) This forum has a list of cards that others have had success with and some that don't.
2) Native drivers are available for cards based on PRISM chipsets (and maybe others ORINOCO?)
That being said ndiswrapper is available, which in theory, will allow you to use Windows drivers for your network card. ndiswrapper is amazing, pretty straightforward to configure. Here's the rub, the stack size in most linux distros is 4K or 8K. Some of these drivers require 12K in order to work properly. That means you have to rebuild the kernel. Actually, the linuxant web sites has some pre-built kernels that one may just download. Although, I didn't see anything for DSL.
Give ndiswrapper a shot. My experience is that it always works in a wireless network with no security (WEP, WPA). As soon as you try to configure the wireless card with iwconfig wlan0 key, things will start to go wacky. Sometimes immediately, sometimes within a minute or two. In this case, the stack size is too small, a different kernel is necessary.
It looks as though you are trying to rebuild the kernel yourself. I downloaded the kernel-package and kernel source and gcc packages. I didn't get very far, seem to be missing quite a few things. Also, I really am not a linux expert or software developer ... for someone who knows what they are doing, it might be pretty straight forward.
Until a better solution arrives, I came up with an alternate hardware solution. Ahh, maybe on a rainy day I'll learn to how to recompile the kernel and publish a how-to.
Until then best regards,
Scot
Posted by thebufenator on April 02 2005,07:06
I tried ndiswrapper, got it to install, it seemed to work....but not wireless access. It wont look. I also have a wired card.
What programs should I use to fiddle with wireless?
Posted by thebufenator on April 03 2005,22:38
I used iwspy, and it say: "device ath0 dosn't support wireless statistic collection"thats my wireless card........
anybody care to help?
any good wireless programs to try?
how do I manually setup my w-card?
Posted by thebufenator on April 04 2005,00:23
I got the card to work, it has an 11mb/s connection to my router.......How do I get the internet to go through the wireless card? I think its still trying to go through the wired card.......
Posted by scotf on April 04 2005,02:32
Hey Buf,I think this is where you are, but of course I could be wrong. You run from the shell the command ndiswrapper -l and you get a response like
| Code Sample |
netwg311 hardware present |
If that is so, run the iwconfig command with no arguments and you should see eth0, loopback and wlan0. If you don't see wlan0. Try the shell command
| Code Sample |
| modprobe ndiswrapper |
Next use iwconfig to set the particulars of your WiFi network
| Code Sample |
iwconfig wlan0 essid BufHouse ( or whatever your SSID is) iwconfig wlan0 key FFFFFFFFF ( whatever your network key is. In this example I assume 64bit WEP so you enter a 10 digit hex key). In one instance, I had to set the channel using iwconfig channel x (mine happens to be 6). Simarly, one can specify the mac address of the access point. However, I've never seen the need to do so. |
At this point, wlan0 may be up running if your network uses DHCP. To find out run ifconfig and see if wlan0 is listed and if so, does it have an address assigned? If it is listed but doesn't have an IP address assigned issue the shell command
| Code Sample |
| ifconfig wlan0 up |
If you are using static IP's, I think the command after configuring with iwconfig is (you'll have to put in your particulars here)
| Code Sample |
ifconfig wlan0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast xxx.xxx.xxx.255 followed by router add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx you may also have to have specify your name servers. However, if you have had the PC connected using an ethernet cable, setting the addresses of one or more domain name servers should'nt be necessary. |
Ahh, finally a number of the iw ... commands aren't supported when ndiswrapper is used. I have used iwlist succussfully with ndiswrapper. This will report a list of access points (that broadcast SSID) within the receiving radius of the network card.
Even if all goes well, the computer may hang. If so the network card drivers are exceeding the per-thread stack size limit set by DSL. In order to fix that, we need to rebuild the kernel with a larger stack size. I found some instructions on how to do so for Debian. On a fairly a new PC I installed Ubunto (another Debian derivative) this weekend along with some development tools. Hopefully next weekend I'll have time to rebuild a new kernel for DSL and test.
Best of luck and let me know how you make out!
Kind Regards
Scot
Posted by thebufenator on April 04 2005,14:05
I actually got it all working, but its at 802.11G, is there a command to force 802.11G? Or maybe its the driver.......
I am only 10 feet from the router
oh, and its ath0, not wlan0
Posted by scotf on April 04 2005,17:30
Supposedly, there is a rate parameter for iwconfig. E.g.) iwconfig ath0 rate 54M. I've never tried it though and I'm not sitting in front of my DSL box at the moment.However, congratulations on getting your card!
Kind regards
Scot
Posted by thebufenator on April 04 2005,18:02
hmmm......right now my noise level is twice as high as my signal level.......
10 feet from the router.
My roomies comp can access the router in the basement of the building, and I am on the 3rd floor......so it has a strong output.
anyway of clearing this up?
Posted by scotf on April 05 2005,20:22
Getting out of my area of expertise. However, I did experience something similar. I was getting a weak signal using a USB adaptor. The PC was under my desk, when I put on top, the signal immediatly strengthed to nearly 100 percent. The card came with a little extension device, so I put it on before putting it back under the desk. Now it works well. I would look for environmental stuff ... try moving the computer around if possible. I doubt its the driver, etc.
Just a guess!
Scot
Posted by thebufenator on April 06 2005,18:06
It says it gets twice as much noise as it does clean signal........anywhere on campus.maybe its just a bug......because I can connect to any netwrok my roomy can.
Also, iwspy dosn't work, it says :device ath0 dosn't support wireless statistic collection.
Is there a way to fix this? I hate having to ask people what the router name is......