ndiswrapper on fedora 10

demonmail · #1 2nd January 2009, 01:10 PM

I am a brand new Linux user, trying it out for the first time and am i attempting to get Ndiswrapper 1.53 to install, however i am unable to get tar zxvf ndiswrapper-1.53.tar.gz to do anything for me
can anyone help me

demon

demonmail · #2 2nd January 2009, 02:34 PM

i have no idea, ive just tried it again and ive got it extracted this time
but then the install thing ive been following says summat about "make uninstall"
and then "make" my terminal refuses to do both even when i use root so again screwed over.

demonmail · #3 2nd January 2009, 03:26 PM

okay.....
i set the directory this time and i managed to get make uninstall to run but this time i got lots of errors about being able to find the kernel when i used make

sanjay_ankur · #4 2nd January 2009, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonmail

I am a brand new Linux user, trying it out for the first time and am i attempting to get Ndiswrapper 1.53 to install, however i am unable to get tar zxvf ndiswrapper-1.53.tar.gz to do anything for me
can anyone help me

demon

hi,

do you have an active net connection? if you do..

Code:

yum install ndiswrapper

will do the needful..

What wireless hardware are you trying to get to work?

regards,

Ankur

demonmail · #5 2nd January 2009, 07:05 PM

i have an active wired connection that i can use for the time being until i can get that infomation to you,
but i forgot about using yum

sanjay_ankur · #6 2nd January 2009, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonmail

i have an active wired connection that i can use for the time being until i can get that infomation to you,
but i forgot about using yum

hi,

if you have a broadcom wireless please refer :

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...ht=ndiswrapper

regards,

Ankur

FedoraMark · #7 2nd January 2009, 07:19 PM

I am also getting this error - I am using a Netgear WG311v3 (Marvell chip)

demonmail · #8 2nd January 2009, 07:40 PM

thanks alot anvar, thats working a treat

sanjay_ankur · #9 3rd January 2009, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FedoraMark

I am also getting this error - I am using a Netgear WG311v3 (Marvell chip)

hi,

had a look at this?

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...etgear+WG311v3

regards,

Ankur

stoat · #10 3rd January 2009, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanjay_ankur

Quote:

Originally Posted by FedoraMark

I am also getting this error - I am using a Netgear WG311v3 (Marvell chip)

hi,

had a look at this?

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...etgear+WG311v3

Hello sanjay_ankur,

Yeah, but at the end of that thread, arep3 ends up buying a new wireless card. Nevertheless the steps and instructions that I wrote in post #10 of that thread are still worth trying by anyone with that Netgear wireless card (IMO).

FedoraMark · #11 4th January 2009, 08:48 PM

Thank You

This worked a treat: (I used the Windows 98 Driver)

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

Alright. I have seen many posts about this card and Linux. Most end badly or not at all. But I have seen a few end with success. Those always used ndiswrapper. The eureka moment always occurred after some command related to loading the module was executed (i.e., ndiswrapper -m). However your problem does not seem to be loading the module (see your /sbin/lsmod report). So, I am left with my only idea being to review the whole process as I know it. I am not a developer or wireless expert. Just somebody that has used ndiswrapper for a long time. Maybe you will see something that was overlooked or another idea.

Ndiswrapper

Ndiswrapper acts as a sort of "adapter" to make a wireless card's Windows driver work in Linux. The Marvel 88w8335 is known to work with ndiswrapper. I have seen posts where either the XP, W2K, and even the W98 driver was used. Ndiswrapper can be installed either from source code or from binary pre-compiled packages. A very popular example of a binary version of ndiswrapper is the rpmfusion (formerly livna) group of kmod-ndiswrapper packages (three packages all together). I have used ndiswrapper from both installation methods at one point or another. If one method never seems to work, it's reasonable to try the other. After all, it's not impossible to get ahold of an old source package and compile something less than an up-to-date version of ndiswrapper. Anyway, to use the rpmfusion kmod-ndiswrapper...

Acquire the XP driver for the card from its CD, the Internet, or your Windows XP system folders. You will need at least the SYS and INF files. Put those two files together in one place, open a terminal, and cd to that directory.

NOTE 1: As already mentioned, people are known to have used the W2K and W98 drivers for the WG311v3 with ndiswrapper. This is a matter for experimentation discussed below.
Install ndiswrapper and the driver...
Code:
```
su -
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
yum update
yum install ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper -i [driver INF filename here]
ndiswrapper -mi
```
NOTE 2: That system update step was added as an optional step. It's probably a good idea. In the early days of a Fedora release (like now for F10), things are sometimes busted all over the place. I have already heard about troubles with the released version of NetworkManager. New kernels regularly bust people's wireless setup, but that is a risk worth taking (IMO). I would update the entire system via yum.

NOTE 3: There are two other variants of that last step (see the ndiswrapper help). This is another matter for experimentation discussed below.
Now enable and/or restart NetworkManager in Services (system-config-services). I think a reboot is a good idea at this point (the ndiswrapper module should get loaded and NM should start). Establish the connection using the NM tray icon (left-click it). It is not necessary (IMO) to do anything in the Network Configuration utility (system-config-network) as people often do. I don't even have a wireless connection in the Network Configuration utility, and yet I am connected with NM now.

If it doesn't work...

Some things to check if it doesn't work. Reboot and...

Look at the list of loaded modules. The following terminal command will list the loaded kernel modules, and the ndiswrapper module should be in the list...
Code:
```
/sbin/lsmod | sort
```
If the ndiswrapper module is not being loaded, then create an ndiswrapper alias for the wireless device in /etc/modprobe.conf...
Code:
```
echo "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
```
Confirm the driver was installed. The following terminal command should indicate that the WG311v3 driver is installed and a device is present...
Code:
```
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
```

Experiments to try...

Some areas for experimentation...

Completely uninstall the driver and ndiswrapper and re-install another version of ndiswrapper vis-a-vis source versus binary. If trying source, get the latest possible version.

To uninstall drivers...
Code:
```
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -e [driver name here]
```
Uninstall ndiswrapper itself either with yum remove ndiswrapper for the binary verision or make uninstall for the source version. You can also manually search for related remnants like this...
Code:
```
su
find / -name ndiswrapper
```
Delete them. Then re-install ndiswrapper.
Uninstall the driver and try one of the other Windows drivers for this card (XP, W2K, W98).
Try a different module-loading ndiswrapper command option. There are three of them...
Code:
```
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -mi
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -ma
```
See the ndiswrapper help (/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper --help) for some very brief descriptions of them. Once upon a time, that first one was all we had. It created the usual alias line, but in the file /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. Recently, the other two appeared (with very little explanation about them). But the -mi one writes install configuration lines in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper as you already know. The -ma one writes alias lines in that same file. The important thing about them is to execute only one of them because those last two completely rewrite the /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper file erasing what was there before, and the -m one will complain if one of the other two has already been done before it. So, when experimenting with these commands, first manually clear out or delete /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. I have seen posts where people did all three one after the other (more is better approach). It just doesn't work the way they think and can create a mess if -m is done last. I tried all of this stuff.
Network Configuration utility versus NetworkManager. I recommend trying NetworkManager until you've plowed it into the ground. Nowadays, I use only NetworkManager. I don't even have a wireless connection in the Network Configuration utility. Try NM with every variation above that you try. It works well nowadays. The other idea to try is creating a wireless connection in the Network Configuration utility (system-config-network) without using NetworkManager. I did that for a long time before I had even heard of NetworkManager. I used manual commands to bring up the network. Eventually, I put those commands in scripts to ease the burden. Example commands that I used (now, these are examples only for clarification of my words about them)...
Code:
```
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 key restricted [WEP key here] essid "[SSID here]"
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up
/sbin/dhclient wlan0
```
Code:
```
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 down
killall -q dhclient
rm /var/run/dhclient.pid
```
Consider buying a new card that is easier to setup in a Linux system. They're out there.

As always, best wishes.