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Topic: Ndiswrapper - WPC54G - Modprobe fails

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lowride

Group: Members
Posts: 1
Joined: April 2006

Posted: April 13 2006,18:10

Hi,

I'm trying to get my AST Ascentia M Series (233MHZ - 64MB RAM) Laptop to work with Linksys WPC54G (v.2.0) wireless pcmcia card.

The card shows up in DSL panel, and I got the 2.02 version of the windowsdrivers ndiswrapped, but when I modprobe ndiswrapper I get an error message (dmesg)

"Failed to allocate DMA memory", bla bla bla ...windows driver couldn't initialize the driver.

I googled and found a guy with a similar problem, giving advice to change the kernel memory allocation, using sysctl

Quote

which is to add these lines to /etc/sysctl.conf, and run "sysctl -p" to update the settings:

kernel.shmmax = 67108864
kernel.shmall = 67108864
from:http://www.tulrich.com/geekstuff/debian_tricks.html

anyway...when I tried to I could not make changes in the lib tree, as the file that is updated with sysctl is part of the dsl image, with read only access.

So I'm stuck on how to get this card to work. Any suggestions?

jonam

Group: Members
Posts: 37
Joined: May 2006

Posted: May 14 2006,12:29

Hello,

I have the same problem with a D-Link DWL-G650 (Rev C3) wireless card (Atheros chipset). DSL supposedly works with this "out of the box" if you read the website. I have installed my DSL onto the hard-drive of an old Compaq 1530D (Pentium MMX 133MHz, 16MB RAM).

Both the Madwifi driver and ndiswrapper have failed in DSL with this card and after a lot of searching, it appears that the versions supplied with DSL are way out-of-date. As I cannot access the web, I cannot update these drivers and hence I am in a catch-22.

I first tried using the Madwifi Atheros drivers included with DSL but checking the dmesg log found that Madwifi returned an error code 13 which meant that the version of Madwifi with DSL was too old for the chipset revision. Checking the Madwifi site, I found that this driver has now been replaced by Madwifi-ng which apparently isn't available for DSL and I have no idea where to get it. So my only choice was ndiswrapper.

I tried using the D-link drivers with ndiswrapper but it failed to detect the hardware as DSL recognised the Atheros chipset and did not link this to the D-link drivers. So, after some searching on the web, I found the Atheros reference drivers and loaded them up with ndiswrapper. Rather than use the tool included with DSL, I found installation instructions for ndiswrapper on Sourceforge and followed them exactly.

Managed to load the driver OK and it detected the hardware. When I then tried modprobe, I got the same error message as you have in the dmesg output. Similarly, I found the same solution you did for your problem and as I had hard-disk install, I was able to change the syscntl.conf file.

Didn't work - same error in dmesg file. Then I noted the ndiswrapper version - it is 0.10!! Currently I believe it should be 1.2 according to the ndiswrapper website.

As far as I can work out both Madwifi and ndiswrapper need to be updated to current versions but I have no clue how to do this as I am new to Linux. I don't have the time to find the source and re-compile the latest versions and I have no idea if they will work with the supplied kernel.

So, like you, I am stuck. Looks like I will have to install my old Win98SE on this laptop and try and get that working with the G650.

Regards,

Jonam

roberts

Group: Members
Posts: 4983
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: May 14 2006,16:52

There is an updated nidswrapper in DSL v2.4RC2.
I am using it with an Atheros G54 type pcmcia card.

jonam

Group: Members
Posts: 37
Joined: May 2006

Posted: May 15 2006,00:16

Roberts,

Thanks. Last night I managed to find the updated madwifi-ng driver for DSL but have yet to try it out. I assume that the updated ndiswrapper will be found in the same DSL repository?

My only way of transferring files from the web to my DSL machine is via floppy. I will let you know what happens.

Regards,

Jonam

jonam

Group: Members
Posts: 37
Joined: May 2006

Posted: May 15 2006,13:11

Roberts,

I tried out the new madwifi-ng driver for DSL. Unfortunately, its two steps forward, one step back. The driver installs correctly, however, when I try to configure the card using the wlanconfig command, I get (depending on from where I run the command):

ioctl: Operation not permitted and,
ioctl: Invalid argument

Turns out after searching on Sourceforge that this is a known problem with Debian 2.4.27 kernel:

sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=14359060

I assume it is occuring with the 2.4.26 kernel in DSL.

Next try will have to be ndiswrapper in DSL 2.4RC2. A couple of evenings work to reload DSL and I will let you know.

Regards,

Jonam

10 replies since April 13 2006,18:10

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