[Wi-fi,laptop,newbi] Problmes with D-link DWL-G630. Please help, I'm completly stuck!

[mareczko]

Dear fedeora users!
Forgive me my lack of knowledge and stupid questions, but I am a complete newbie to fedora. I' ve been trying hard to solve my problem but I just can't manage to do that by myslef -therefore I ask you for help. It would almost save my life if you could help me! I don't have regular connection to the interent, and I would reaaly appreciate if
I could use my laptop to get the wireless internet...

Let me get to the point.
Im using: fc 7; kernel 2.6.21-6.fc7xen; laptop compaq evo n610c; cardbus card d-link DWL-G630 H/W ver: E2, F/w ver 5.00
System is fresh, I'm just starting to install all the hardware.I had to change to boot sequence, so I'm running system the grub descibes as ??fc-base.??
I hope it's not the issue here...


the problem is that I cannot get my card working, and I badly need the wifi connection to the internet. I tried to solve the porblem in few ways, as follows:


1. First I tried to follow the steps from this site: http://www.ilug-cal.org/wiki/index.php/D-linkDWL-G630
which is blacklisting the existing driver in etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, and then compiling and installing a new driver downloaded from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads as I type 'make' I get:

make: *** /lib.modules/2.6.21-6.fc7xen/build: No such file or directory

What can I do tho solve the problem? Why don't I have these direcotry?


2. Next thing I did is (after deleting the line from blacklisst created prevoiusly) as it says here:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=161923&page=1&pp=15 and that means that I used the rpm created by Duli which (as I assume) installed the drivers into /lib/firmware. My card showed up in the NetworkMenager
but as I tried to get the connection I got these:

error for wireless request "Set mode" (8B06): SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
Error for wireless request "Set bit rate" (8B20): SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

How can I solve the problem? What's wrong here? What does it mean?
(there seems to be an anwser to this prpblem in the same thread but the link is dead so it didn't help me)


3.I looked further and found another solution. I tried to follow the instuctions provided here http://dnmouse.webs.com/wirelessdrivers.htm which asked me to update yum, what I did, and install the correct firmware - I did this using the rpm provided by Duli I wrote above.
unfotunatelly i think I couldn't alias the correct module for wlan0 device. I didn't get any errors though, but the card is still not working. I guessed to use the commands for b43 device (not b43legacy - there is a distinction on the site above)

What could go wrong here? Should I install the fimrware by:
su -c 'b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware /path/to/kmod/wl_apsta.o' ?
if yes, then where is the wl_apsta.o file in the dirver I downloaded from here: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt61-cvs-daily.tar.gz
Or maybe using the rpm does the same? Or maybe I shuold follow the path for b43legacy drivers?


4.Using the same site: http://dnmouse.webs.com/wirelessdrivers.htm I tried to install madwifi. Using these commands:

su -
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
yum -y install kmod-madwifi
I got a message that i miss dependancy: kernel-i686 = 2.6.23.1-21.fc7 is needed by the kmod-madwifi package. What does it mean?

I have different kernel (as I assume reading the kernel number in grub.conf) and do I have to install new one? Should I bother with
the madwifi, anyway?

5. Then I tried to install the madwifi by compiling what meant using these commads:
su -
yum -y install gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)
wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/madwifi-0.9.3.2.tar.gz
tar -xvf madwifi-0.9.3.2.tar.gz
cd madwifi-0.9.3.2
make

But 'make' shows me this:

makefile.inc:66: *** /lib/modules/2.6.21-6.fc7xen/build is missing, pleas set KERNELPATH. Stop

What does it mean? I have the vmlinuz...fc7xen in the /boot directory. Whats wrong? Will it help me anyway if my
computer already 'feels' the card - as I can see it in the NEtwork Menager?

Please help me! Im' feeling completly lost!
Please let me also know if should do all this things one after another without any corrections. Myabe I should've started
with the madwifi then try the other stuff.... Is so, then please let me know how to back up everything I ve dobe by the porcedures described above.

Thanks in advance!

[mareczko]

Please help!
I still get these errors:

error for wireless request "Set mode" (8B06): SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
Error for wireless request "Set bit rate" (8B20): SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

Maybe I'll descirbe again what I tried to do:
I tried to install the driver first with the rpm provided by Duli - It didn't work properly

then I tried to install the ndiswrapper (yum install kmod-ndiswrapper) but I get dependancy error - it tells me that It won't work with my kernel, only with some other one. So i tried to install it by 'yum install kernel 2.x.x.x.' 2.x.x.x beeing the number yum asks me when installing ndiswrpapper. I succeded but I failed to use it because my kernel was newer, so I couldn't use the old version.

So i tried to compile the ndiswrapper by myself but I got this error (after 'make' in the ndiswrrpapper directory):

makefile:35: *** cannot find kernel version in /usr/src/kernels/2.6.21-1.3228.fc-i686, is it configured? Stop

What can I do to 'configure' this kernel version? How can I solve this problem?


Next I tried other way - I tried to install the driver form rt2xOO site http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads again. Unfortunatelly, after 'make' in /module dir I got

make: *** /lib.modules/2.6.21-1.3228.fc7/build: No such file or directory

so i run 'yum install kernel-devel' but, I still get the same error after 'make'. What's wrong?What can I do?

I'm copletly lost. Don't know what's going on.
Maybe I should try with madwifi? (I had problems with installing it either...)

[mareczko]

SOLVED!
Hurray!

What I did is I just istalled the drivers form rt2x00 site (link above) but the rt61 CVS hourly version.

So I basically followed the instrucitons from here (only difference is that I used different version of the driver) http://www.ilug-cal.org/wiki/index.php/D-linkDWL-G630

I had problems with compiling - I got an error that there is no 'build' directory in lib/modules/2.6.xxx , so I browsed the whole lib/module directory and found a kernel version that had 'build' catalogue - this means I just went into all the directories that have been there and noted down the name of the one which had the 'build' directory inside. Then I edited /boot/grub/grub.conf in such way that, while booting the computer I could run the kernel which had the build directory. As I booted with that kernel compiling the drivers went fine. After the copying etc I got everything working!

I've got another problem now. I can only get the wireless working using system-config-network. I never managed to connect to wireless (although my card 'sees' many) by using knetworkmanager, which is much easier to use. Why is it so? I tried to do all the configurations I could imagine (via 'system-config services') this means: starting at boot the networkmanager, without 'network', or starting by boot 'network then the network manager seperately etc. but the knetworkmanager never works!

What can I do to solve the porblem! I would like to control to which net I am connecting. System-config-network connects me without my decision...

Thanks for answer!