Ndiswrapper Freezes DSL
Forum: Networking
Topic: Ndiswrapper Freezes DSL
started by: Juanito
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 05 2005,10:44
Atter some Google research of successful installs (but none using DSL), I've being trying to load ndiswrapper to use the Dell wireless 1350 WLAN mini PCI card in my Dell Latitude D400. This uses the Broadcom chipset:0000:01:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94306 802.11g (rev 03)
The ndiswrapper setup seems to work initially:
root@box:/usr/sbin# ndiswrapper -i /path/bcmwl5a.inf
ls: /etc/ndiswrapper: No such file or directory
Installing bcmwl5a
root@box:/usr/sbin# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a hardware present
The next step seems to go ok:
root@box:/usr/sbin# modprobe ndiswrapper
root@box:/usr/sbin#
But the system freezes and the only solution is to hold the power key until the laptop switches off.
Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be?
Posted by Dell Lappy User on Oct. 12 2005,05:11
Jaunito,I use a D600, running my uber Gentoo installation and I too have experienced this and still do today. One question, ... is your power cable plugged in? It seems that my lappy has decided that ndiswrapper wants too much power that batteries alone cannot provide. Not a likely reason, but thats the best I have for you right now. Unfortunately, this is not a consistent problem with regard to the power cable being present while utilizing ndiswrapper.. just during the intial loading of the module. Once loaded, I can walk about my business as usual, detaching my street power ambilical. I hope this helps, and I will monitor the thread and post my findings.
-good luck.
DLU.
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 12 2005,09:16
Well it could be the power story except that wireless works fine under Windows - both plugged and unplugged. I have the reverse problem with my USB CD-R, I get the BSoD under Windows and it works fine with DSL...I'll try DSL 2.0 RC - the ndiswrapper is apparently updated.
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 13 2005,10:16
So with DSL 2.0RC1 and a different Windows driver file (SP23107a) ndiswrapper does not freeze DSL.ndiswrapper -l
installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a hardware fuzzy
The wlan still doesn't work though - watch this space
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Oct. 13 2005,12:37
Go over to the ndiswrapper site, look at their wiki, and use the recommended driver for your card.-J.P.
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 14 2005,03:39
Been there, done that 
It seems drivers listed to work with the exact same Broadcom card (as per lspci & lspci -n) are machine and/or Linux dependent.
But I'll get there eventually...
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 15 2005,08:44
After trying many drivers suggested in the ndiswrapper wiki, I finally found one that works.The problem I have now is how to save the wlan settings, load them at boot and automatically request an IP address.
As per various posts, I tried the following:
To have the network settings picked up at startup, I added the following line to /bootlocal.sh
/opt/myiwconfig.sh
To save the various settings, I added the following lines to /home/dsl/.filetool.lst:
opt/myiwconfig.sh
etc/ndiswrapper/
etc/network/interfaces
this loaded ndiswrapper at startup but I still had to manually enter the SSID, WEP code and request an IP address.
The ndiswrapper wiki states that the following command should save the settings but it does not seem to work.
Root@box:~# ndiswrapper -m
modprobe config already contains alias directive
Does anyone have any ideas?
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 17 2005,08:34
After some more fruitless playing around, I decided to try and use ndiswrapper from the DSLpanel rather than entering commands via an XTerm.This method has the advantage of generating a file /opt/myndis.sh which contains details of the driver .inf file, the SSID and WEP code.
By adding /opt/myndis.sh and /etc/ndiswrapper/ to .filetool.lst and /opt/myndis.sh to bootlocal.sh, my wlan now automatically connects to the router on boot - the only problem is that I get the following boot error message which obliges me to hit <enter> to continue the boot:
"bcmwl5a.inf is already installed. Use -e to unload it. The driver (bcmwl5.sys) is not for your system. It's likely to work anyway but keep this in mind in case of problems"
I guess the error message occurs because myndis.sh tries to write the driver to /etc/ndiswrapper which has already been restored and loaded - does anybody know if it is possible to pass a null file name in myndis.sh or get it to ignore error messages?