[tranceybowler]

Hello all,

I just installed Mandrake 10.1 community edition from some CDs which came with a magazine here in the UK. Installation was flawless, nearly perfect and in general I'm very pleased. However I'm having some difficulty trying to set up my wireless internet connection.

We have a Wireless ADSL modem (Belkin F5D7630-4A) connected to another computer in the house. And my computer is connected to this wireless modem by a 802.11g wireless LAN card.

Upon install, mandrake has detected two ethernet cards:

eth0: Realtek|RTL-8169
eth1: IEEE 1394 IPv4 Driver

I've tried tinkering round with the settings but so far no luck. Does anyone have any hints as to how to get this working? Any advice appreciated! Also if you want any clarification please ask as I'm sure I'll have missed something out in this original post!

Thanks!
Matt

[Qchem]

The version of ndiswrapper installed by mandrake is incomplete, it needs to be removed and the latest version downloaded and installed. If you search this board for ndiswrapper you'll find detailed instructions.

If you're still stuck please feel free to post back.

[Havin_it]

That depends on the card. If it's also Belkin 54G range, chances are it'll work without going through that process (my PCMCIA did).

For starters, check you have ndiswrapper installed, then visit their website ndiswrapper.sf.net and follow the HOWTO.

[Qchem]

It's probably still worth checking some of the ndiswrapper posts on here, IIRC there was some problem removing the broken mandrake installed version.

[tranceybowler]

Hello guys, thanks for your replies.

I'm pretty new to Linux to be honest (I only installed it a few days ago) so I'm quite confused about this whole ndiswrapper thing, I don't know if I have it or whether I have the correct version etc. I've tried searching on here but there's so many posts I'm not sure where to start!

Also I'm not sure whether my modem is a 54g model, how do I find out?

Sorry for the lack of knowledge, I want to learn all about Linux but first I need to get the internet sorted out so I can read tutorials etc. from my Linux desktop!

Any help appreciated!
Matt

[Qchem]

Theres some info in Tips and tricks that should prove useful. If you browse over to the ndiswrapper website and have a read through some of their docs that will help too!

[Gowator]

I recently found that many 54G cards are just working under my debian installs. Can't promise mandrake except of course if it works in one it CAN be made to work in another...

The latest liveCd from kantotix actually boots and configures them (to the point of connecting to the internet if you have a non-encrypted wireless router configured with dhcp.) and this then tells me what driver is being used :D/>

If you have broadband you could do worse than boot the kanotix liveCD with the cards and see how it configures them :D/> then copy the /etc/network directory :D/> after making sure you have the modules (mine is prism54) in the modules dir in MDK..

[tranceybowler]

Gowator, on Feb 17 2005, 10:52 AM, said:

The latest liveCd from kantotix actually boots and configures them (to the point of connecting to the internet if you have a non-encrypted wireless router configured with dhcp.) and this then tells me what driver is being used :D/> 

If you have broadband you could do worse than boot the kanotix liveCD with the cards and see how it configures them :D/>  then copy the /etc/network directory :D/>  after making sure you have the modules (mine is prism54) in the modules dir in MDK..
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Gowator, I'd like to try this method you suggest but I can't find anything about this "kantotix" you speak of. A search in google only gives about 50 results, am I missing something?

Matt

[Qchem]

A google for kanotix gives the correct website as the first result for me :)/>

[tranceybowler]

Qchem, on Feb 20 2005, 10:05 AM, said:

A google for kanotix gives the correct website as the first result for me :)/>
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks Qchem, I was confused because Gowater spelt it "kantotix" in his post! I'll have a look now.

[tranceybowler]

OK I'll have to admit I'm completely stuck. I've run the Kanotix Live CD (nice distro actually!) and I think it detects some things but the internet won't work. However there's so many options on that to configure networks / wireless stuff I wasn't sure where to begin!

I had a look in the /etc/network directory and there's some files there but they don't mean anything to me.

Just in case I didn't explain correctly to start with, In my house there are 2 computers: one upstairs running windows XP and connected by USB to a Belkin Wireless ADSL modem.

My computer (downstairs) is connected wirelessly to this ADSL modem, via a 802.11g Wireless LAN card (although I can't find out what brand / chipset it is, it's a cheap one I think!).

Is ndiswrapper definitely the key? If so I guess I should really start reading up more on that. If I can provide any more information which might help you guys understand what my situation is, please ask! I can post the .inf and .sys files for the wireless LAN card if that's any use? I really appreciate your help so far, if anyone can point me in the right direction then that would be great. Thanks again!

Matt

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Steve "Newbie Translator" here.

If you only see those two eth* devices being configured (eth0 and eth1) chances are the kernel doesn't have the drivers you need for your card by default. You'll probably have to use a third-party app like ndiswrapper, which allows you to use the Windows drivers for your card in Linux or something else, like the MadWIFI drivers for Atheros chipsets.
You can find out what chipset your card is by running

lspci -v

in a console. Scrolling through there should be pretty obvious which is your wireless card. Post the chipset here and we might help you better.

BTW, the eth1 is probably your firewire chip...it's detected as an ethernet controller alot, even in Windows.

[tranceybowler]

Hi Steve, thanks for your reply, I think you're right about eth1 being a firewire chip, I think it was detected as a ethernet controller in windows too. Anyway, I ran the command you said, and I've included the ones which I think are relevant below:

00:0b.0 Network controller: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface
        Subsystem: Abocom Systems Inc: Unknown device ab90
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 19
        Memory at eb024000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Memory at eb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <available only to root>

00:13.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology: Unknown device e000
        Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
        I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
        Memory at eb026000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: <available only to root>

00:14.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology: Unknown device 1000
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
        Memory at eb027000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
        Memory at eb020000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <available only to root>

Does this make any more sense now? I do have the driver disc for the wireless card, but I don't know if I have the correct version of ndiswrapper installed. I'm running 10.1 Community Edition if that helps. Thanks in advance!

[Steve Scrimpshire]

For clarification, since this got resolved in IRC:
This was a pci network card. Tried module acx100_pci which did not work.
Downloaded ndiswrapper-1.0 on another PC to a floppy from here http://sourceforge.n...cts/ndiswrapper
Extracted it to the home directory.
Installed kernel-source-2.6
Followed the instructions to install ndiswrapper.
mounted the windows driver disk.
ndiswrapper -i /mnt/cdrom/path/to/inf/file
ndiswrapper -l
(to make sure card is seen properly now)
ndiswrapper -m
(to do the alias in /etc/modprobe.conf)
iwconfig wlan0 essid <<essid>> key <<key>>
Edited /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 like so:
DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
WIRELESS_MODE=Managed
WIRELESS_ESSID=<<essid>>
WIRELESS_ENC_KEY=<<key>>

[Qchem]

This appears to be resolved so I'll flag it solved, if more help is required let me know and I'll remove it.

Congrats on getting it working!