Wireless

[rammcconnell]

I reciently installed Linux Mandrivia and i like it so far, but i have a couple of problems. The wireless internet isn't working. I'm a total noob so i know nothing about pretty much everything. I righting clicked on the wire thingy on the lower right hand part of the screen. and clicked confgure network, then wireless then the first option witch is my wireless card (theros AR5413). it said it was unable to find a network interface for device.? I whent back and clicked use windows driver. it took me a while to figure out that i needed to install ndiswrapper for it to work.(or maby you don't ) so i downloaded ndiswrapper from the website. it was a .taz file. that introduced my next problem. I don't know what a .taz is or what to do with it. I know you can extract it, and i did that) but all i get in the extracted folder is a buch of odd named files that open in kwrite. I have no idea what to do or how to install it. I searched online but all i could find was long tutorials that i could not understand.
one last thing. When i open konsole and type su to log in temarerely as root it will ask me for a password. When i try to type my pass word nothing happens. The curser just stays in one place. (Agrivating!!!!!!)
If you have any information that could help me please tell me. It would be a big help. Thank you.

[Dapper Dan]

On that password thing... It's not going to move. Just type in the password and press enter. If you entered it correctly, then press enter and it should be okay.

[minthaka]

I would recommend you to download the ndiswrapper package in RPM format:
RPM Search ndiswrapper-1.47-2mdv2008.0.i586.rpm
This will be more easier for you to install. Afterwards, do the process you've described above again, point to the *.inf file in the installation's CD of your wireless card, and you'll have your network.

It may happen that some of the dependencies are not on your Mandriva DVD, in that case you have all the required dependencies listed on the same webpage, but I think it would be O.K.

[rammcconnell]

Thank you for this suggestion. I appreciate your time. How ever i reinstalled Microsoft. Maybe I gave up too soon, but i no longer need help.
Same For Dapper Dan

[wolfton]

Gave up too soon...

setting up WiFi in Mandriva 2008.0 is fairly painless.

1) Identify your wireless adapter.

2) Download the driver installer application from your laptop or wireless adaptor vendors.

3) Open up a terminal and switch to su by typing:

su

and enter your root password when prompted.
4) type

ndiswrapper -l

to see if you have ndiswrapper installed, and to see if you have any drivers already installed.
4a) If you don't have ndiswrapper installed, then place your DVD in the optical drive and click "Configure Your Computer." (The blue computer screen icon with the red box wrench in a circle in the lower left hand corner of your screen.
4b) Enter your root password and click "Manage Software" and type "ndiswrapper" in the search box.
4c) place a check next to "ndiswrapper" with "NdisWrapper binary loader utility" under it. My computer shows version "1.47-2mdv2008.0". Click "Apply" and once its finished, click "Quit".

5) Once you know that you have ndiswrapper installed, you can unzip your windows wireless driver from the application installer by going back into the terminal window and typing

sudo -s
echo blacklist bcm43xx >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
exit

I know you're already super user, but I did it this way because I was loosely following some steps in the Ubuntu Forums.
5a) Restart your computer.

init 6

if you're still in the terminal window.

6) After restarting, go call up another terminal window and change to the directory that you downloaded the installer appplication to. Mine was called "r151517.exe" and it was on the Desktop. (I recommend moving the executable to another folder before unzipping it.)
6a) Type the following, substituting your actual application name for "r151517.exe" and your correct driver for "bcmwl5.inf"

unzip -a r151517.exe
cd ./DRIVER
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -l

7) If you chose the right driver, you should get a message stating that both the driver and the firmware were found.

ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo -s
echo ndiswrapper >> /etc/modules
exit

sudo iwlist scanning

After a few seconds, you should see the wireless access points that your computer found. I hope that this helps someone else in the future.

Will