They broke it in 2007!

[Urza9814]

The entire reason I'm using Mandriva is because in 2006, it had EXCELLENT wireless support. I simply hit 'select from list', selected the ACX100, and it worked. That's all it took. But that list isn't there in 2007. And ndiswrapper doesn't work. If I set it up from the command-line, it just doesn't do anything (everything appears fine, it just never connects or shows up in MCC), and if I set it up from MCC, it says "unable to find the ndiswrapper interface". When I try to install ndiswrapper from a tarball, I get the following error:

In file included from /home/urza9814/ndiswrapper-1.33/driver/hal.c:166:
/home/urza9814/ndiswrapper-1.33/driver/hal_exports.h:27:error: expected identifier or '(' before '/' token.

 

...Why did Mandriva screw it all up :( It worked so well!

[ianw1974]

I never got ndiswrapper working from using the interface gui. I always did it from the command line.

 

First off using the:

 

ndiswrapper -i filename.inf

 

to get the driver installed, then following the installation wiki for ndiswrapper for the rest. With Mandriva though, you had to ensure that /etc/modprobe.conf had the following line:

 

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

 

this is normally added after using the:

 

ndiswrapper -m

 

command if I remember right. Then, you had to edit /etc/modprobe.preload and add:

 

ndiswrapper

 

to it so the card would start at bootup.

[Urza9814]

well, I did all that, everything ran smoothly, and nothing happened. wlan0 is in modprobe and everything, but it doesn't exist. ndiswrapper says everything's fine, but there just is no connection.

 

why did mandriva get rid of that list thing :(

Edited January 3, 2007 by Urza9814

[ianw1974]

I've no idea, but you're glad you don't have the same card as me. I have an ipw3945 and I cannot get it working with native drivers or with ndiswrapper. In fact, if I try ndiswrapper, my machine craps, and I have to hold the power button down for five seconds to be able to turn it off and restart.

 

And I don't have sound either - seems my hardware is just too new right now - and I've tried Mandriva 2007, Gentoo 2006.1, Arch Linux 0.7.2 (updated to 0.8), Fedora Core 6.

[Urza9814]

Well I already had to buy one new card 'cause my Belkin one was completely hopeless.

[pmpatrick]

See if the card is detected from the command line with:

 

# iwconfig

 

If it doesn't show up or reports that wlan0 has no wireless extensions, it's probably a kernel problem. Ndiswrapper breaks frequently with new kernels, particularly smp kernels. You just have to wait till they update ndiswrapper to be compatible with the new kernel. Alternatively, you could get the rpms for the mdv2006 kernel and kernel source and try installing that kernel on mdv2007. You will have to reinstall ndiswrapper on the new kernel but it should work if it's a kernel issue causing the problems.

[Urza9814]

wlan0 doesn't show up on iwconfig, and I don't really have time to screw with this (which is the whole reason I use Mandriva), so I'm currently burning the 64bit 2006 ISOs.

[Urza9814]

So I'm back on 2006, and now I'm getting an 'incompatible architecture' error. :(

looks like I need a special 64 bit version. Which I can't find. Any workarounds or something? My current theory is just screw it and install 32bit mandriva. I would just screw it all and run on windoze for now, but it keeps screwing with the partitions on my new harddrive. it won't stay on the old one where it's supposed to.

Edited January 3, 2007 by Urza9814

[Urza9814]

well, that worked really well. Now I feel stupid. Probably shoulda mentioned it was a 64 bit CPU, but I didn't know that that mattered.

[pmpatrick]

For anyone else wondering about this issue, from the ndiswrapper FAQ:

 

Can I use ndiswrapper in 64-bit mode for AMD64?

 

Yes.

[edit]

Can I use 32-bit Windows driver in 64-bit mode?

 

No.

 

So if you want to use ndiswrapper on a 64-bit rig, there must be a 64-bit windows driver for it. You cannot use the 32-bit windows driver.