ashokoffice

Hi There

I would appreciate a help on getting wireless card working on Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.

I have already tried most of istructions posted by other users and still struggling to get this working.

Thanks in advance

Ashok

carlosponti

the worst thing is you are getting tagged on two fronts wireless and integrated. saying that what you have to do is run lspci and see what the chipset is before you can proceed any further. most likely its the intel wireless or a broadcom. I have a Dell 1525 which had Ubuntu Preloaded on it. Is there any reason you are stuck to red hat? Ubuntu might be easier to get wireless working on since Dell preloads them so finding information might be easier.

__________________
Blog
Registered Linux user 396557

reed9

I suggest posting in the wireless section. Please read this thread first.

__________________
The Arch Way

How to Ask Questions the Smart Way
Registered Linux User #482863

ashokoffice

Carlosponti : Unfortunately I got to stick with this flavor of linux because this is the linux version certified by Oracle for Oracle Applications, which I have already installed on this machine. Took me al most whole day to set it up.

Reed9:
Thanks for the prompt response.
Please find all details as suggested by reed9
========== lspci =========
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2a40 (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2a42 (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2a43 (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2919 (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation SMBus Controller (rev 03)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.: Unknown device 4354 (rev 13)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

========== lsusb =========
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 13fe:1a00
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:63ee Microdia
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

========== lsmod =========
Module Size Used by
sky2 41413 0
vfat 17089 1
fat 43489 1 vfat
parport_pc 28033 0
lp 15021 0
parport 37641 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 24901 0
i2c_dev 13377 0
i2c_core 26049 1 i2c_dev
sunrpc 143269 1
ipt_REJECT 10689 1
ipt_state 5953 5
ip_conntrack 45829 1 ipt_state
iptable_filter 6977 1
ip_tables 21953 3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
loop 20425 0
dm_multipath 22985 0
button 10705 0
battery 12741 0
ac 8901 0
md5 8129 1
ipv6 240609 10
hw_random 9429 0
snd_azx 21841 2
snd_hda_codec 126529 1 snd_azx
snd_pcm_oss 51193 0
snd_mixer_oss 21057 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 89925 3 snd_azx,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 27205 1 snd_pcm
snd 55845 8 snd_azx,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,sn d_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 13089 2 snd
snd_page_alloc 13897 2 snd_azx,snd_pcm
sr_mod 20965 0
dm_snapshot 21349 0
dm_zero 6465 0
dm_mirror 31429 0
ext3 119497 2
jbd 59993 1 ext3
dm_mod 64745 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
ahci 25029 0
libata 105629 1 ahci
usb_storage 62729 1
uhci_hcd 33241 0
ohci_hcd 24273 0
ehci_hcd 32325 0
sd_mod 20673 5
scsi_mod 119501 5 sr_mod,ahci,libata,usb_storage,sd_mod

========== dmesg_firmware =========

========== kernel version =========
2.6.9-55.0.0.0.2.ELhugemem

waterhead

That is a very old kernel. You must be using RHEL 4, or even older. If you could use the latest version of RHEL (5.3), you MAY find the driver is in the kernel, but I'm not positive about that.

If you still must stick with what you have, then you will have to use NDISwrapper. It uses the WinXP driver for your card and then interfaces it with the Linux system. I doubt that it is available for installation from Red Hat, so you will have to download and compile it from source:

Browse ndiswrapper Files on SourceForge.net

The most recent version is usually the recommend one to use, but it may not br compatible with your kernel. If you get too many errors, try using older versions.

Since ndiswrapper is a kernel module, you will need the kernel source to compile it. Here is a short list of dependencies:

kernel-devel (kernel source)
kernel-headers
gcc (Linux C compiler)
make

You will also need a wireless connection manager. I like using Wicd, but again, I don't know if it will install on such an old kernel Give it a try, anyway:

Browse wicd Files on SourceForge.net

If you can't use Wicd, you will then need to install wpa_supplicant (for WPA encrypted networks), and set up a config file for it.

__________________
Paul

Please do not PM me with requests for help. I will not reply.

reed9

This is your wireless card. Broadcom cards are notoriously tricky, especially under distros running older kernels like Red Hat.

There are a couple of otions you have. There is a linux driver, called bcm43, which was added to the kernel starting at version 2.6.17. (This is now deprecated and a newer driver, the b43, is used for more recent kernels.) To use this you need to install some extra firmware. Hmm, but your kernel doesn't include it, so unless you update the kernel, scratch this.
Home - Broadcom 43xx

Or you can use ndiswrapper, which might be the easiest solution in your case. This allows you to use the windows xp driver for the card. Red Hat does not have ndiswrapper in it's repos, though, so you'll need to get it from a 3rd party repo, such as ATrpms.

I believe you can find the windows drivers at this link.

Here are some basics on using ndiswrapper, starting at the Installing Windows Driver section. If it works you'll want to load the ndiswrapper module at boot. Not sure where Red Hat configures loading modules.

Given your kernel version, it looks like you're using Red Hat 4, right? I really have no idea how well any of this will work given how old that kernel is. Red Hat is not a laptop distribution. Aside from the fact that the software is RHEL4 is ancient, and will not support newer hardware (and much of that newer hardware we would consider pretty old right now!), it is simply not designed for laptop use.

If possible, upgrade to at least the latest Red Hat release. Or see if you'd be allowed to use CentOS, which is just a free community version of Red Hat. I assume if you're using RHEL4 you're not paying for support, so why not not pay for support with a current release?

EDIT: I took a break for tea in the middle of the post and Waterhead beat me.

__________________
The Arch Way

How to Ask Questions the Smart Way
Registered Linux User #482863

ashokoffice

Hi Reed9

I tried ndiswrapper-1.55 but both make and rpmbuild is failing. Just erroring out. filed 'lock' has incomplete type
Ashok

reed9

The ATrpms link I posted above has binary packages. You don't need to build the package from source.

__________________
The Arch Way

How to Ask Questions the Smart Way
Registered Linux User #482863

waterhead

The oldest kernel module that they have avilable is this one:

ndiswrapper-kmdl-2.6.9-78.0.22.plus.c4smp-1.48-13.el4.x86_64.rpm

I think that the "plus" in the version refers to the CentOS Plus repository, but I could be wrong. You can update your RHEL kernel using the CentOS repositories.

__________________
Paul

Please do not PM me with requests for help. I will not reply.

ashokoffice

Tried ndiswrapper-1.48.13.el4.i386.rpm
failed for following dependency
ndiswrapper-kmdl-1.48-13.el4
Then I tried
ndiswrapper-kmdl-2.6.9-89.0.3.EL-1.48-13.el4.i686.rpm
that also failed for following dependncy
/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-89.0.3.EL

Please help !!!