Alaric

O.k. guys got a problem and starting to get fairly pissed. I've been trying for a while now and I'm still stuck with the windows portion of my dual boot for wireless internet on my month-old Compaq Presario Laptop. When I first installed Debian Etch, it found the name of my driver just fine (Broadcom 4318 Airforce One or something like that), but it would not connect to my Linksys wireless network. I've tried multiple routes to get my Debian Etch system up and running, including the preinstalled BCM43XX driver, but as seen on this (http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/?go=devices) page of the driver's home site, the 4318 is not yet currently supported. I've tried for tedious hours trying to get this to work and am on the brink of trying to learn driver programming to get it going. I WANT THIS TO WORK. The worst part is, all of my friends are sitting there laughing while they tell me what a crock Linux is. I have NDisWrapper (1.9?) and have gone through multiple guides to install the bcmwl5a.inf/sys windows drivers, but have STILL been unsuccessful. PLEASE help out this newbie, I don't want to abandon Linux on my laptop, but I see wireless internet as a MUST.

Dapper Dan

Hi Aleric, and welcome to Linuxforums.

I understand your frustration. Without an Internet connection, you're pretty much dead in the water. The good news is, your card will work with Linux, but you will need to use ndiswrapper to get it going. So where did you get with that? Is ndiswrapper installed yet? How far did you get before running into trouble?

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Alaric

Thanks for the interest, I've posted elsewhere and never got a response... Anyways, I got to the part where the guides tell me to do modprobe ndiswrapper or ndiswrapper -m and then I get an error that says something like alias already added to directive. That's definitely not exact, but something like that. After that, nothing in the guide works out. But it seems to install the windows driver fine, ndiswrapper -l even claims that the driver is ready and the hardware is present; not to mention that it even adds wlan0 to /etc/network/interfaces. I also uninstalled the BCM43XX driver because I heard it messes with ndiswrapper. And before you ask, yes I am running this all from root.

antidrugue

Can you give a little more details ? How far did you got ?

Did you compiled the NDISWRAPPER kernel module ?

Did you follow the usual instructions afterwards ?
What tells you
and
The official instructions are here :
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m.../InstallDebian

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Dapper Dan

Alaric, sounds to me you're ready to fire that sucker up!

If it shows device is present and alias ndiswrapper wlan0 has been added to to your /etc/modprobe.conf, you should be good to go. I want you to do this...

(1) Check /etc/modprobe.conf to make sure the correct entry has been added for ndiswrapper and wlan0.
EDIT: The WIKI says this should be in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper so check there instead of /etc/modprobe.conf.
(2)Run:
to ensure ndiswrapper is present in the list. If Not, run:
and then run lsmod again to see if ndiswrapper is there. If so...
(3)Check /etc/resolv.conf and make sure the first line is...
Mine looks like this...
I forget where you configure Internet connections in Debian so let's do it from the command line. Are you using static IP or DHCP? Are there any special parameters that need to be set such as ESSID or WEP Key? I'm going to assume you are NOT running static IP or WEP, so run:
Then run:
...and see if there is an entry there for wlan0. Does it have an IP assigned? If so, try getting on the Internet with your web browser. If not, run:
...and run:
again to see if you now have an IP assigned to wlan0. When you see an IP address there, try the Internet again.

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Alaric

O.k. Here's some more info

First an lsmod

Module Size Used by
ipv6 211424 10
ppdev 8452 0
parport_pc 31524 0
lp 10692 0
parport 31944 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
button 6544 0
ac 4868 0
battery 9220 0
sata_sil 9480 0
libata 60300 1 sata_sil
scsi_mod 120840 1 libata
nls_iso8859_1 4224 1
ntfs 184468 1
dm_snapshot 15772 0
dm_mirror 17616 0
dm_mod 48696 2 dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
loop 13832 0
8250_pci 19840 0
shpchp 33816 0
snd_atiixp 17292 0
snd_pcm_oss 35616 0
snd_mixer_oss 15616 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_atiixp_modem 14088 0
snd_ac97_codec 82336 2 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem
snd_ac97_bus 2304 1 snd_ac97_codec
pci_hotplug 26420 1 shpchp
snd_pcm 71432 4 snd_atiixp,snd_pcm_oss,snd_atiixp_modem,snd_ac97_c odec
snd_timer 19716 1 snd_pcm
snd 45668 7 snd_atiixp,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_atiixp_mo dem,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
ati_agp 8460 0
soundcore 8800 1 snd
evdev 8960 1
pcspkr 2816 0
agpgart 29232 1 ati_agp
rtc 11444 0
snd_page_alloc 9480 3 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem,snd_pcm
ext3 115336 1
jbd 45460 1 ext3
ide_cd 35104 0
cdrom 32288 1 ide_cd
ide_disk 14976 4
generic 4356 0 [permanent]
ohci_hcd 17412 0
ehci_hcd 26888 0
usbcore 108544 3 ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
atiixp 5520 0 [permanent]
ide_core 107940 4 ide_cd,ide_disk,generic,atiixp
8139too 23680 0
8139cp 19328 0
mii 5248 2 8139too,8139cp
thermal 12680 0
processor 21440 1 thermal
fan 4484 0

The ndiswrapper -l

installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed (alternate driver: bcm43xx)
wmp54gs driver installed, hardware (14E4:4320) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)

You'll have to wait for the iw & if configs, they didn't pipe right somehow. I'll get them tomorrow, I don't have time to screw with this right now.

Dapper Dan

It appears you have conflicting drivers and this is perhaps why you do not see ndiswrapper when you run lsmod. You should delete (wmp54g) and leave just the one (bcmw15) for your device. Run:
After you are left with just the one for your device, re-run:
If no errors, again check lsmod to see if ndiswrapper appears there. wlan0 cannot be configured until ndiswrapper shows up when running lsmod.

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Alaric

(none):/home/jroose# ndiswrapper-1.9 -e wmp54gs
(none):/home/jroose# modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.
(none):/home/jroose# modprobe ndiswrapper-1.9
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper_1.9 not found.

(none):/home/jroose# ndiswrapper -m
modprobe config already contains alias directive

(none):/home/jroose# ndiswrapper -ma
module configuration information is stored in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

Also, it may be worth noting, I seem to have 3 versions of ndiswrapper installed. Ndiswrapper, Ndiswrapper-1.1 and ndiswrapper-1.9; each with their own commands.

The iwconfig only confirmed what I knew, eth0 and sit0 (?) where the only two entries, wlan0 was nowhere to be found. I removed the other driver and installed bcmwl5a.inf (which I thought that I already had) As you can see, still no success with modprobe ndiswrapper and lsmod ...

burntfuse

If you've got 3 versions of ndiswrapper, you should probably just clear them all out (with "make uninstall") and reinstall the latest one.

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Dapper Dan

I agree with burntfuse. You can also eliminate the drivers you don't need manually:
...to see the drivers there, then:
...to eliminate the driver(s).
Make sure the last command is as I've posted it before pressing enter. rm -rf can delete the wrong things if you aren't careful. Also, check in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper to make sure you only have one entry for ndiswrapper for wlan0

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