Wifi / Slackware

Printable View

01-27-2008
desheret

Wifi / Slackware

I have attempted to install wireless on Linux before, with miserable results. Hopefully this time, I might be able to get it working with a bit of help from you all.

I have some slight problems. First problem, here's the output of iwconfig:

Code:

lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. sit0 no wireless extensions.

You will notice a distinct lack of wireless cards. This confuses me, since I have a built in wireless card ( bcm43xx chipset), but I've had worse luck with that than with other wireless cards, so I've also got another plugged into my PCMCIA slot. Another bad sign is that the power light on my PCMCIA card steadfastly refuses to light up.

I also have no idea what "sit0" is...

I decided to see if installing the driver for the Broadcom would make my computer recognize it, so I downloaded bcm43xx and the firmware. I ran bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware[name of fimrware file] and the firmware seems to have installed correctly into /lib/firmware. However, when I try to modprobe bcm43xx it cannot find the module.

So, I have no idea where to proceed from here. At first guess, maybe I need to recompile my kernel with support for something that I forgot? I have no clue what that would be though.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
01-27-2008
oz

Hi, desheret

I have no experience with wireless so can't help much but while you are waiting for responses from someone who does, check this HowTo to see if it offers up any tips that might help to get you up and running:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...lan-linux.html

Hope it helps.
01-27-2008
desheret

New development:
I installed ndiswrapper and managed to get it to recognize my internal wireless card. I still have no clue why PCMCIA doesn't work, but I figure I won't bother messing with that at the moment.

The card appears to be working. Oddly enough, when I iwlist wlan0 scan, it can't find any networks, despite the fact that there are 3 different networks accessible from here.

I was also considering using wicd, but odd thing happened. I installed it, but now it says I'm missing GTK and gtk.glade, despite the fact that they are installed.
01-28-2008
waterhead

Are you sure that the wireless is wlan0? On my Suse laptop, with NDISwrapper, it is listed as eth1.

Try checking the output of iwconfig again.