Inspiron 700m

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Inspiron 700m
started by: CrazyDesi

Posted by CrazyDesi on July 05 2005,21:12

Ok I have the Dell Inspiron 700m. It comes with the centrino processor and has the 802.11g built in. Can anyone please explain how to get it to work with DSL as it is not working at the moment and is not being detected.

Posted by tempestuous on July 06 2005,00:01

There's a dedicated linux driver here - < http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ > but unfortunately it requires a kernel patch and recompile.
See < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....t=5;r=1 >

Posted by CrazyDesi on July 06 2005,00:27

Anyway to run it with ndiswrapper instead? And maybe some intrustions on how to?

Posted by tempestuous on July 06 2005,02:34

Sorry, I just assumed that because other owners of that chipset mentioned the link that it was the only option.
Google reveals that there are some people reporting success with ndiswrapper and the Intel ProWireless.

Do a search on this forum for "ndiswrapper", it's been discussed many times before.

One tip I recall is when sourcing your Windows driver, you might need other files in addition to the .inf file.

Posted by gjhicks on July 07 2005,14:12

Please post an example of these successes with ndiswrapper and the Intel Prowireless. Searching the DSL forums doesn't give much hope - see < here for example. >

I have tried to find a Win98 driver set for the IPW2200 but, according to the Intel site and others, only Win2000, WinXP and newer are supported.

Very much look forward to the info.

Posted by tempestuous on July 07 2005,15:44

Google search for "ipw2200 ndiswrapper" ... 2 examples -
< http://linux.vandeplas.com/acer/aspire2012.htm >
< http://dynevor.hopto.org/linuxiste/10p1/x40_mandrake_10p1.html >

As I said in that other post, success may be dependent on the distribution/kernel, but it's worth a try (in DSL).

Even if ndiswrapper does not work in DSL, the knowledge that it's feasible can lead you further ... like installing an updated version of ndiswrapper.

It's not unusual that newer devices are problematic on older kernels, so if ndiswrapper still won't work with DSL I agree with cbagger01 that using a new version of Knoppix (ver 3.9) with boot option "knoppix desktop=fluxbox" could be the easiest solution.

Posted by gjhicks on July 08 2005,12:59

Hi,

Thanks for the links.

Downloaded two versions of the WinXP IPW2200 drivers and used the DSL Control Panel to unse ndiswrapper to install these drivers.

In both cases, got the following:

"lsmod" response:
-----------------------------------------------------
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
af_packet 13544 0 (autoclean)
ndiswrapper 80040 1
ehci-hcd 16616 0 (unused)
mousedev 3832 0 (unused)
etc, etc..................

"ndiswrapper -l" response:
-----------------------------------------------------
Installed ndis drivers:
w22n51 hardware present

However, 'iwconfig' reported no wireless adapters.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Regards,

Geoff.

Posted by tempestuous on July 09 2005,01:06

"w22n51 hardware present"
This is a good start. Hopefully there will be some ndiswrapper experts on the forum who can finish this off for you.
I'm more familiar with wlanctl-ng issues, but let me take a stab - start with my previous point "... you might need other files in addition to the .inf file"
I presume you installed the driver like this -
ndiswrapper -i /xxx/w22n51.inf
Hopefully you had the OTHER Windows driver files in the /xxx directory, especially w22n51.sys?

I just found a tip at < http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125627 > which makes this point more strenuously -
/usr/sbin/loadndisdriver 8086 1043 /lib/windrivers/w70n51.sys /lib/windrivers/w70n51.inf
Aside from the fact that they have a different version of the Windows driver, notice they specify a vendor/ID code, and the Windows .sys file as well as the .inf file.

And regarding the Windows driver version, I'm not sure it was a great idea to follow that link and use that one - it's for a Sony VAIO.
Why not get the Dell driver? -
< http://support.dell.com/support....n&s=dhs > "Network Drivers"
Intel ® PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection v.9.0.2.10, 9.0.2.25, A09
It's a 30MB download, and probably contains a lot of wireless management software as well as the driver itself.

Another guess - it sounds like your system wants some form of network configuration to define a wireless interface.
perhaps you could force ndiswrapper to recognise a wireless interface (?) -
modprobe ndiswrapper if_name=wlan0
... or it might have something to do with your /etc/network/interfaces file.
I think the line "auto lo" should be changed to "auto lo wlan0".

And it might be worth finding an iwconfig howto on the web.

Posted by CrazyDesi on July 09 2005,06:41

I have downloaded both .sys and .inf files and receive the same error.

Posted by gjhicks on July 09 2005,13:19

Hi,

Thanks again for the suggestions. I have tried a series of device driver versions, in all cases a full set of driver files were available, including inf, sys, cat, etc.

The results are given below:-

typical driver directory contents
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Directory of E:\ipw2200\WLAN9.0.2.25

31/05/05 10:40 PM 188,416 SetupWLD.EXE
25/01/05 11:17 AM 4,849 SetupWLD.ini
03/06/05 09:24 AM 13 verfile.tic
31/05/05 10:46 PM 1,671,168 W29MLRES.DLL
30/04/05 04:03 PM 2,926,208 w29n50.sys
28/05/05 03:50 AM 14,382 w29n51.cat
17/05/05 10:22 AM 119,774 w29n51.INF
30/04/05 04:01 PM 3,281,408 w29n51.sys
03/05/05 07:06 AM 466,944 W29NCPA.DLL
31/05/05 10:40 PM 122,880 WLDMLRES.DLL

driver versions tested
============================================================================
ipw2200 driver version 8.0.12.2
ipw2200 driver version 8.0.12.9
ipw2200 driver version 8.0.12.12
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ndiswrapper -i ..../w22n51.inf - executed without error
ndiswrapper -l - noted that the driver was loaded and the hardware present
modprobe ndiswrapper - wifi panel light lit up but the machine froze (completely), required a hard reset.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ipw2200 driver version 8.1.0.28
ipw2200 driver version 8.1.1.0
ipw2200 driver version 9.0.0.61 (as installed the test machine, a Dell Inspiron 700m)
ipw2200 driver version 9.0.2.25
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ndiswrapper -i ..../w22n51.inf - executed without error
ndiswrapper -l - noted that the driver was loaded and the hardware present
modprobe ndiswrapper - executed without error

resulting dmesg output:

ndiswrapper version 0.10 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address dff4af0c
printing eip:
dfc55f01
*pde = 1d26c067
*pte = 00000000
Oops: 0000
CPU: 0
EIP: 0010:[<dfc55f01>] Tainted: P
EFLAGS: 00010296
eax: dff4af00 ebx: dfc660d4 ecx: ffffffff edx: 002e4f00
esi: dff4af00 edi: dfc66000 ebp: 00000000 esp: d8d4feb4
ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018
Process loadndisdriver (pid: 735, stackpage=d8d4f000)
Stack: 403a8000 403a7000 dfec6000 dfc660d4 dfc66000 dd99c827 d8d4ff58 dfc56088
dfc66000 dff4af00 000000d0 dd99c800 dd99c800 d8d4ff63 dfc51d3d d8d4ff00
dfc66000 00261000 de153190 d9ccc680 d8d4ff58 00000000 da515740 da515740
Call Trace: [<dfc56088>] [<dfc51d3d>] [<dfc5255a>] [<c012c06b>] [<c012c07f>]
[<c010e1c7>] [<c014cd08>] [<c0108997>] [<dfc5002b>]

Code: 8b 4e 0c 85 c9 74 34 31 db 8d b6 00 00 00 00 8b 54 1e 0c 89

iwconfig found no wireless adapter
-------------------------------------------------------------

Look forward to any futher suggestions.

Regards,

Geoff.

Posted by tempestuous on July 10 2005,02:15

You have patiently investigated this problem well, testing different driver versions and checking documentation.
I think that DSL's 2.4.26 kernel just isn't working for you.
I have just learned that Feather Linux has the 2.4.27 kernel. So I suggest you try ndiswrapper with ipw2200 in Feather.
Feather is bigger than DSL, but still not large. If you're a hard-drive install kind of user, it's probably the better option anyway.

Still no good? Move up to Knoppix 3.9 - it has kernel 2.6.11.10
Or want to stay small ... try Puppy Linux or Austrumi Linux ... but now you're leaving the Debian family.

If you find that Feather (or Knoppix) works, but you're absolutely hell-bent on using DSL, it's possible to "transplant" a newer kernel into DSL, at least the 2.4 versions anyway.
It's easier than it sounds. I see that another forum member, Tronik, has done this.
I, myself, upgraded Luit Linux's 2.4.22 kernel to 2.4.26 in order to get a wireless driver similar to yours working. I seem to recall I just replaced the kernel (linux24) and the entire /lib/modules directory, and maybe minirt24.gz.

It may even be possible to upgrade to a 2.6 kernel from Knoppix, but if you decide to attempt this, I strongly suggest you use Knoppix 3.8 or 3.9, because earlier versions could dual-boot the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. So a special boot option was required which might be difficult to emulate in DSL.

Posted by gjhicks on July 10 2005,07:59

Once again, thanks for the feedback. I have used Feather quite a bit but it is (I understand) no longer to be developed. Also, it does not have the very neat 'mydsl' facility available in DSL.

Along the way, I have had a shot at Mandrake, Redhat/Fedora, Knoppix, Kanotic, Ubuntu, Mepis and Puppy but DSL seems to me to be the most coherent small(er) linux solution.

But, for the sake of completeness, will try the ipw2200 setup in Feather.

Posted by gjhicks on July 14 2005,10:57

Hi,

Tried the ndiswrapper procedure in Feather but no joy.

Guess I will have to wait until the 2200bg becomes so common that it just gets included in the basic setup.

Thanks for your help, these forums are a great source of suggestions/tips.

Bye for now,

Geoff.

Posted by spring on July 15 2005,03:20

it's easy to made 2200bg working good in knoppix 3.9 liveCD and ubuntu 5.04 liveCD ,and i
made it work good in slackware 2.4.26 kernel or 2.6.7 kernel(10.0),so do i in slax pro 4.2.0 with 2.4.28 kernel(kernel-ide-2.4.28-i486-1.tgz),the kernel 2.4.x need patch,just follow in feather linux,but i don't know how to compile in dsl,i know how to make a .dsl, could somebody help me ,and i 'd like to make an ipw2200bg.dsl , sorry about my poor english

Posted by gjhicks on July 15 2005,12:10

Hi,

Thanks for your input. I agree: I have it working in a series of distros but they all had a 2.6.xx kernel. And, they were all big distros!

Have you got it to work in Feather? If so, please post some details, I would be very happy to use it in Feather.

Regards,

Geoff.

Posted by gjhicks on July 15 2005,12:11

Posted by spring on July 16 2005,09:59

yes, dsl and feather are small,and slax is small,too. slax is ~200M, and now there is a mo of ipw2200 for slax 5.0.5.
i like them all. but i cannot surb with ipw2200 in dsl and feather ,
thank you,gjhicks, for your experience.
i made slackware 2.4.26 work well with ipw2200 just followed your process,

Posted by gjhicks on July 16 2005,12:48

Glad that you got it to work - I guess that is what is what these forums are all about.

Bye for now,

Geoff.