HOWTO: Ndiswrapper Wireless Setup

guyr · Apprentice Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 237

Running kernel 2.6.15-r1 on AMD64 eMachines M6805. Everything other than wireless works fine, so now I'm trying to get that to work. I have Win64 in dual boot, and that connects wireless fine. I'm using the Broadcom driver from there (got the inf from following one of the links in this thread.)

In short, I can't get this working. Win64 says signal strength is "low" but it works. Here is what I see in /var/log/messages after modprobe ndiswrapper:

Feb 11 00:55:07 emach ndiswrapper version 1.8 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach ndiswrapper (load_pe_images:571): fixing KI_USER_SHARED_DATA address in the driverFeb 11 00:55:08 emach ndiswrapper: driver netbc564 (,10/01/2002,3.70.17.5) loaded
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:0c.0
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:10.0
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:11.1
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:12.0
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:01:00.0
Feb 11 00:55:08 emach ndiswrapper: using irq 9
Feb 11 00:55:09 emach wlan0: vendor: ''
Feb 11 00:55:09 emach wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:90:96:79:90:35 using driver netbc564, 14E4:4320.5.conf
Feb 11 00:55:09 emach wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA; AES/CCMP with WPA
Feb 11 00:55:10 emach net.agent[9175]: add event not handled
Feb 11 00:55:10 emach irq 10: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)

ndiswrapper -l says it found the device and the device is working. If I use iwconfig wlan0 channel 8 (which is what I use on the Linksys G router), it will change the channnel successfully. However, if I try to set ap, it just ignores the request.

iwlist wlan0 scan produces no results. If I try "dhcpcd wlan0" it will just sit there for awhile and return; dmesg reports it timed out waiting.

There is some kind of interference with the VIA sound driver. After loading the ndiswrapper driver, anything that causes an system event sound will loop on that sound. Eventually it will stop repeating itself. None of the devices listed above as sharing IRQ 9 is the VIA sound driver.

When I issue iwconfig commands, it tells me "Warning: Driver for device wlan0 has been compiled with version 19
of Wireless Extension, while this program supports up to version 17. Some things may be broken..."

Any suggestions on where to go from here? I'd like to get this working. Thanks.
_________________
Guy Rouillier

guyr · Apprentice Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 237

I'm confused about the interaction between iwconfig and ifconfig. Will changes requested with iwconfig only take effect while the interface is down (i.e., ifconfig wlan0 down)? Trying seemingly random configuration changes, I managed to at least see the Linksys Wireless G router sitting about 35 ft from my laptop (upstairs). With iwconfig reporting this:

Mode:Auto Frequency:2.447 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:xxxxxxxxxxxxx Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

iwlist wlan0 scan reported this:

wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
ESSID:"l1ika"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.447 GHz (Channel

Quality:0/100 Signal level:-75 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

Seeing the mode reported by the ap was "Managed", I updated wlan0 to this mode. At that point, iwlist no longer showed the ap with scan. No matter what I do, I can not get anything to appear as the result of scan again (there are several other ap's in my neighborhood, including one next door that I've used successfully from Windows.)

So I'm clueless as to how iwconfig works. When I specify iwconfig wlan0 essid "l1ika", it doesn't seem to do anything; the essid field reported by iwconfig remains "off/any". Similarly, if I use "iwconfig wlan0 ap xxxxxxx", it doesn't use the value of xxxxxxxx that I supply; it either leaves it set to zero, or one time it set it to some other non-zero value entirely. I can't imagine where it got that value from. I should be supply the MAC address the wireless router assigned to the wireless connection on its end, right?

There was one time when I actually got iwconfig to display a non-zero access point address and the correct essid. I have no idea what sequence of commands I used to produce that, but changing Mode to Managed reset both settings.

I'd appreciate some pointers as to how iwconfig is supposed to work, and what it means when it ignores commands. Thanks.
_________________
Guy Rouillier

guyr · Apprentice Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 237

Another random tidbit of info. I changed the mode to Managed. Seems that changing the mode resets all other settings. At any rate, with the mode changed, I ran iwlist wlan0 scan, and this time I saw all 5 APs that normally show up under Windows. Feeling lucky, I tried "dhcpcd wlan0"; unfortunately, it still timed out without successfully obtaining an IP address. As a final attempt, I carried my laptop to my Linksys router and reran this exercise while sitting right next to the router. Still no connection. But this at least eliminates signal strength as the issue. So that means that there is a basic problem with getting the configuration to work. All suggestions welcome.
_________________
Guy Rouillier

luna80 · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:10 am Post subject:

vicaya · n00b Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 57

Guyr: I have a similar machine: m6809 (amd64, 2.6.15-r5 nonprempt -- doesn't make any difference to me, nonsmp, ndiswrapper 1.8 with windows netbc564 driver for the broadcom 4306.) Everything works great (unencrypted since 2.6.10/ndiswrapper 1.2; wep and wpa-psk with wpa_supplicant 0.5.1 (both -Dndiswrapper and -Dwext work) using baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1 -- good multi-nic support)

I use wireless-tools-28_pre14 -- no warnings about extension versions. Try no-encryption, wep and wpa in that order, as the dependency/requirement on the wireless AP/router also increases. I initially had problems with WPA with a netgear router where you have to set pairwise and group to TKIP explicitly without CCMP etc, in addition to the required psk. If you have ssid broadcast turned off on the AP you have to set ap_scan=2 and scan_ssid=1 in wpa_supplicant.conf

Good luck.

dodoalien · n00b Joined: 16 Feb 2006 Posts: 10

hi all

im tring to get up my wireless card on my ASUS A4K series laptop
the wire card is and USB one, i used ndiswrapper and XP drivers: ZD1211U.inf and ZD1211U.sys

this laptop got amd64 so i emerged ndiswrapper 1.2-r1 but i have no wlan0 if i do iwconfig:

guyr · Apprentice Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 237

vicaya · n00b Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 57

guyr · Apprentice Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 237

sbrownii · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Posts: 6

I followed all the instructions.

I could get the essid of my ap, but couldn't ping the router, let alone get an ip through dhcp

I also had some message that said that that it had been compiled with version 17 instead of 18, or something...

I had originally just manually installed ndiswrapper.

I decided to go ahead and emerge ndiswrapper from portage to see what would happen.

Had to reinstall the windows driver after that.

I used ifconfig to bring wlan0 up, type "dhcpcd wlan0" and wow... it returned quickly... it usually sat there
for the whole 10 seconds and then quit

This time I actually got an ip. I can ping the router. I am writing this post unplugged! (well, my battery is low, so not totally unplugged...)

Don't get that message about being compiled with a different version anymore either....

GuruMeditation · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 1

Nice HOWTO. Now if only Netgear released 64-bit drivers I'd be set

So yah, probably mentioned in a thousand places elsewhere but if you're running a 64-bit version of Gentoo w/ ndiswrapper make sure you get 64-bit drivers or you'll get a nasty surprise in dmesg

So with a Netgear you're most likely screwed ( http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101596.asp )

Until then, must convince the wife that having an ethernet cable running through the living room can look quite visually pleasing with correctly placed drapes (or, failing that, try to make her believe it's very feng shui).

Asthra · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 4

Hi ppl,

I've recently installed gentoo on my AMD64.
and see this howto for installing my PCI Linksys WMP54GS cards.

but after i have installed and configured ndiswrapper with the bcml5 windows drivers front linuxant website, i reboot linux, but i can't have the wlan0.

if i do a ndiswrapper -l i get : driver installed only. not present..

what's wrong with that?

thanks for helping me!

dancin_fool · n00b Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 8

Urbanus · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2004 Posts: 52

Strange, with the last "emerge -uv world" after a sync I receive the error I already described and fixed here. It seems that something in udev was changed which breaks USB 2.0?!

Any ideas?

Edit: after trying a little bit with plugging/unplugging the USB-device, I received

Allochtoon · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 1:08 am Post subject:

Varean · Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:04 pm Post subject:

I have had success with an unlisted device, just for your reference. It is a Linksys 802.11b v2.6 Wireless USB Network Adapter.
_________________
Registered Linux User #387568

MartinC69 · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 6

I'm having problems with a DWL-G520+.

I have used the emerge of ndiswrapper and it would appear to have found the card ok

bdm · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:24 pm Post subject:

If anybody is wondering, I got my Linksys WMP54GS working fine using ndiswrapper in Gentoo. And instead of using wpa_supplicant or wireless-tools to start on bootup and do it's magic. I simply made a small bash file which starts by modprobing ndiswrapper, then sets my essid, then sets my wep key, then fetches my IP with dhcpcd. And this 4 line bash script was put in /etc/conf.d/local.start.

Seventjah · n00b Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 22

delepster · n00b Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 1

Thanks for the guide! Still works :wink:

RageOfOrder · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:27 pm Post subject:

Hey,

Trying to get a wireless setup going here...
Gentoo 2.6.15-r1 on AMD64 using a D-Link G510 (Marvell W8300) card and ndiswrapper.
I managed to find working 64 bit drivers and ndiswrapper loads them just fine

GlemSom · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 31

RageOfOrder:
I've got the exact same problem with the realtek 8185 drivers.
iwconfig can find my AP - but dhcpcd is unable to get any IP from my router

drtask · n00b Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 9

i have a success story for

0b:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

the only issue i've run into is it wont get past my router. i cant figure out what is going on, the card starts up fine, i have /etc/init.d/net.eth0 linked to /etc/init.d/net.wlan0, everything starts fine. i try to ping somewhere, and no internet. otherwise everything functions fine.

bdm · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject:

Also, from what I've seen when I use ndiswrapper is that there is no need to copy the .inf/.sys files manually. Once you do

lukkio84 · n00b Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 3

Hi,
I have a Dell Inspiron 1300 with a Broadcom wireless card.
I've installed gentoo, I've disabled kernel support for SMP, I've installed ndiswrapper, and finally I've installed windows driver bcmwl5.inf correctly.
My wireless light indicator is powered, but if I do iwconfig this is the output:

localhost ~ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Can you help me?

Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!