[SOLVED] Linux Newb wireless adapter..HELP

[cra1gums]

Hi everyone, I have been working on getting this working for a while now and I cant seem to get it going.

I have a Gateway MT6452 and just installed Debian a week ago. I need to get my wireless card working (Realtek RTL8187) and I'm using ndiswrapper.

I installed ndiswrapper and I think I have done it right? I got the following when I run ndiswrapper -l:

# ndiswrapper -l
netrtuw : driver installed
device (0BDA:8187) present

The next step in the README that I have would be to run modprobe ndiswrapper. I have done this, but it doesnt do anything?

# modprobe ndiswrapper
#

here is what the readme says:
Now load ndiswrapper module with

modprobe ndiswrapper

If everything worked properly, this should initialize 'wlan0' wireless
device, which can be configured with wireless tools, such as
'iwconfig', 'wpa_supplicant' etc.

I'm not sure where to go from here, and I apologize if I am missing something completely obvious, I havent really worked with Linux before.

Thanks!

[Dapper Dan]

Hi cra1gums,

Two things: Did you do...

depmod -a

right before doing modprobe? After doing modprobe, see if the module is loaded by doing:

lsmod

Do you see it (ndiswrapper) there? If so, try and see if you can "find" any access points by doing:

iwlist wlan0 scan

[cra1gums]

Hi,

I did not do that before. I just did, ran modprobe then ran lsmod and ndiswrapper was right at the top

Module                  Size          Used by
ndiswrapper           227808      0

I tried the last snippet and got this:

# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning.

also, just as a side question, is it doing processes in the background? I noticed the same thing happened when I ran depmod -a as the first time I ran modprobe. (It just brings up the next line like nothing happened)

Thanks for the quick response!

[Dapper Dan]

In a lot of cases, when you do commands, if nothing is returned, that can be a good sign. Hmmm.... Doesn't support scanning. I'm presuming that it is indeed at wlan0. Try:

ifconfig wlan0 up

Then just:

ifconfig

Do you see wlan0 there? When you do:

iwconfig

Do you also see it?

[cra1gums]

Ok then, thats good to know lol.

after doing the ifconfig wlan0 up, I received the following:

# ifconfig wlan0 up
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device

[cra1gums]

Also, I read in another post that this had happened and they needed to recompile the kernel, as it didnt have wireless support...could that be the issue?

[Dapper Dan]

This is a USB device? When you do ifconfig what devices are listed there? Can you post the output of ifconfig? I found this which looks like it might be helpful.

[Dapper Dan]

This is for Gentoo, but might also be helpful. I'm reading in places there can be problems with this card getting recognised when using it with ndiswrapper. However, as has been mentioned in the two articles, there is a native driver also. See what happens when you do:

modprobe -r ndiswrapper

Then:

modprobe rtl8187

If no errors, do ifconfig and see if wlan0 now appears. If you get a "module not found" it's likely not "turned on" in your kernel which is what you were referring to earlier I think. The Gentoo page I pointed you to has more on what to do to get it going. You might also be able to build it as a module, but I'm not sure about that.

[cra1gums]

I think I might have found an issue?

I am running windows on 32 bit and linux on 64..I saw in dmesg this:

ndiswrapper (check_nt_hdr:150): kernel is 64-bit, but Windows driver is not 64-bit;bad magic: 010B

So, I'm guessing I need a new driver. I gotta hit the hay, but thanks for all your help, I'll keep on truckin and post whatever happens.

Thanks!

[cra1gums]

Got it installed, everything working swimmingly. That was the problem. Thanks again for the help!