Wireless USB, Packard Bell running SuSe

[martinfromdublin]

Hi all,

Anyone know I get my wireless USB device working in SuSe 10.0? Hardware is Packard Bell Easynote B3312, Belkin wireless router but I don't know what make the USB device is.

When I plug it in, SuSe doesn't seem to detect it but I know it works because if I boot to XP everything is OK.

Any ideas?

Martin

[martinfromdublin]

Okay, I've gotten a little further. I changed the USB wireless one I couldn't identifiy for another I have, it's a Belkin 802.11g 54Mbps wireless G USB network adapter. Now, when I plug it in, the light on the device comes on but I get nothing on the desktop to say a new USB device has been detected (like I would do when I plug in a memory stick) so I opened YaST and tried to set up the device from there. I've added it as a USB wireless network card but there are some parameters I don't understand. These are;

Operating Mode; should it be 'Managed', 'Ad-Hoc' or 'Master'?

Network Name (ESSID): what goes in here?

Authentication Mode; 'Open, 'Shared Key' , 'WPA-EAP' and 'WPA-PSK' I presume 'Shared Key' as I have a code for my wireless router?

Martin

[oz]

Hi, Martin - I've deleted your duplicate thread and moved this one to the Wireless section.

oz

[daark.child]

If you are using a wireless router, the mode is usually "managed". The essid is the id/name of your wireless network. As for the key, its whatever key/password you setup for the wireless connection on your router.

[martinfromdublin]

Okay, I've set the operating mode to 'Managed', the authentication mode to 'open' and tried putting both 'any' and my network name in ESSID box and inserted my hexidemical key,no joy. Do I need ndiswrapper installed as well?

Any help on this would really be appreciated as this is the last issue surrounding this laptop, when I bought it last week and told the shop I would install Linux on it, it was met with raised eyebrows. All the shop seemed to be interested in when it comes to operating systems is XP and Vista, they didn't seem to want to know about Linux. So as well as being important for my own use, there's a matter of priniciple here in getting this Wi-Fi working.


Help.......?!!!


Martin

[daark.child]

If you have a key, the authentication mode should not be "open". It should be whatever method you setup on your router e.g. WEP and WPA. If you setup the mode to "open" but the wireless network is secured, you will not be authorised to use it.

[martinfromdublin]

Hi DaarkChild,

I've tried a few different settings (shared key etc..) and different drivers, still no luck. I think this is a driver related issue and not anything to do with the settings, because when I installed this device on the XP partition, once the driver had loaded the light on the USB device started to flash even before I entered the hexadecimal key. In SuSe this doen't happen making me think that no compatible driver comes pre-loaded in SuSe, there's no Linux driver on the CD Rom that came with it, so no luck there.

I've read elsewhere that you can use something called 'ndiswrapper' to utilise the Windows driver? Where would I get an RPM for that package and how would I go about setting it up? I've no idea what ndiswrapper is or how it works (sorry).

Martin

[martinfromdublin]

Okay, we've changed tactics and now I've download an RPM for ndiswrapper and installed it with YaST. I'vr googled for and found instructions on this website http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...ds_in_SusE_9_x

but I'm now stuck trying to find the mn720-ankh.inf, mn720-50.sys files in my Windows partition. If you click the link you'll see the author says there should be there but I can't find them either from a 'find' search or by navigating directly to the 'Belkin' drivers folder in my XP partition.

Any suggestions as to what I do next?

Martin

[martinfromdublin]

Update:I found a downloadable mn720 file but now when I try to continue to the next step I get this;

linux:/home/martin # ndiswrapper -i /zip:/hamow/martin/mn720-ankh.zip/mn720-ankh.inf
mn720-ankh is already installed. Use -e to remove it
linux:/home/martin # ndiswrapper-i
bash: ndiswrapper-i: command not found
linux:/home/martin # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
mn720-ankh invalid driver!
linux:/home/martin # modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.13-15-default/extra/ndiswrapper.ko): Operation not permitted
linux:/home/martin # iwconfig wlano essid Belkin54g
Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
SET failed on device wlano ; No such device.

I thought I was getting somewhere but this has set me right back as I've no idea what the read-out is trying to to tell me.