WLAN - run "modprobe ndiswrapper" at boot?

[taimlinux]

Folks,

Just got me a brand new shiny HP Pavillion dv2700 notebook and expected the computing experience of my life. Well, what I did not consider was that Vista is actually MUCH MORE awful that I expected after many years of 95/XP experience. After only a few weeks this computer became so unbelievably slow and I so fed up with Vista that I decided to install Linux on the machine. Done! I installed Suse 10.3 with GNOME and tried to remember my lost unix/linux memories from over 10 years ago...

OK, everything went fine - I was even able to get my Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN working, using an XP driver kindly provided by DELL (found this advice somewhere on a linux advice page - thanks!! - though I forgot where...) using ndiswrapper. Right, now here's the problem: I can only connect to my WLAN modem, after I have commanded

> modprobe ndiswrapper

as root after boot - apparently the command has to be done by root, normal uses don't have the required rights. Then, every user can use the WLAN connection. Now what do I have to do to have this command automatically executed at boot time? Do I have to edit something somewhere in /etc/init.d/ ?

One more thing - the fact that I got this far with my installation and that I can now enjoy the performance of this nice computer is thanks to the generous advice the linux community is providing on the web in forums like this. This is a really great community!

Thanks,
Taim

[waterhead]

If you want a nice GUI to do it in, open YaST. Then go to the /etc/sysconfig Editor section. Then in the System-->Kernel-->MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT SECTION, add ndiswrapper.

This also can be done by editing the /etc/sysconfig/kernel file. More modules can be added, as long as there is a space between them.

I do have a ndiswrapper file in the /etc/modprobe.d file, but I didn't put it there. It seems to be filled with pci information.

When you installed NDISwrapper, did you run this command?

ndiswrapper -m

Also this

ndiswrapper -a

That may be all that you really need to do, not the stuff I posted above.

[taimlinux]

Thanks, Paul, work's like a beauty now. Let's see - I'm used to Windows and therefore used to having something to complain about ...
...
... don't know ...
... my linux laptop is fast and nice ...

WHY DID I BOTHER WITH "THE OTHER OS" SO MANY YEARS ...?????

[waterhead]

Stick to openSUSE and you shouldn't have too much to complain about.

I am trying out Fedora 8 on a laptop partition, and the wireless is a bit spotty. The same equipment works flawlessly under openSUSE 10.2.