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I have a Broadcom BCM94318MPG wireless minipci card on my Acer Aspire 5100 and I am running Knoppix 5.1. I save all my data on my USB drive so I can save my config. My card is detected by Knoppix but i can't use i don't get any signal. I am a new to Linux itself and don't know how to do any of the setup, so can someone please give me step by step instuction on how to install my wireless card so I can use Knoppix to its full potential.
I see you think your card is detected. There are some things to find out. If the card is detected, Knoppix should have loaded a driver for the card. It is a good idea if you know what dirver is loaded. There are some commands you can use to help find out.
First of all, the hardware. Run the command 'lspci -vv' ( all commands without quotes ) from a command prompt. This will list many lines of information about all the devices connected to your PCI bus. Look for the ethernet card. Cut and paste the lines back to this thread.
Second, run the command 'lsmod' and look for things like wlan or ath_pci. This would indicate you do have a driver loaded. If you think you know which item is the driver, you can find out more about the driver by typing on a command prompt 'modinfo name_of_file'
Loading the driver is only part of the exercise. You will need to configure the wireless adapter. Knoppix does supply some GUI tools to help out. They are found either on the Penguin and the bottom left beside the K icon or click the K, then KNOPPIX, then Network/Internet.
If your card has a linux driver ( this is the best but not all cards have a linux driver ) then click on Wavelan configuration. This tool will ask you some questions, all of the information is specific to your network. You can find the information in your wireless access point, ( your router or Hub ). You will need to know things like ESSID, channel number, WEP keys etc.
You fill in the information, and it runs the commands to configure your card.
Now, once configured, you may need to activate the interface, and things will work when the configuration is correct.
If there is not a linux driver, the other way to get a wireless card running is by using the windoze drivers, and a piece of code called Ndiswrapper. There are some how-tos on how to make that work. We won't go there until we know if we have to. For now, I'm going to assume there is a linux driver for this card.
Post how far you can get, and we'll go from there...
Sorry but I needed to add something because I was in a hurry. Let me clear everything up for you all.
Ok, I couldn't find the right module that you were talking about, but I I think what you might be talking about and the one that makes the most sense for me is the module that includes the bcm43xx. I know that because I have a broadcom driver.
Next thing, I tried the wavelan to see if it will configure my modem, but the thing is that I wish to use my laptop for at public access points because I currently go to school. And I am not really sure about the channel that the wlan is on so i would prefer a search.
Last but not least, I did try the Ndiswrapper with the BCMWL5.sys and BCMWL5.inf. I'm not sure if the inf file is correct because I had to download it from a website that I found it is more of a generic driver that works for my card. And none of these methods worked for me.
As you can see, I am trying very hard to get this to work because I would like to explore the true potential of Knoppix.
From what I can see, you are in good shape. Yes, I believe the BCM43xx is a linux driver, and that means you do not need to try and use ndiswrapper. The card has a Realtek chip set installed. I have used those cards, so I know they will work. At this point this is just nice to know information.
So, now you need to configure the card so you can connect. Two commands will help you out. The command 'iwconfig' will allow you to configure an display the wireless information, and 'ifconfig' will display and configure the TCP/IP information.
Quote:
Next thing, I tried the wavelan to see if it will configure my modem, but the thing is that I wish to use my laptop for at public access points because I currently go to school. And I am not really sure about the channel that the wlan is on so i would prefer a search.
Wavelan doesn't configure a modem, it configures your wireless ethernet adapter with things like ESSID, channel etc.
Most 'public' access points do not use any encryption, WEP keys etc. If this is for school, the ones I have set up usually will tell you the settings you need for windoze. With a little translation, these are the same for linux. The only thing that is different is where you enter the information. Do you have a windoze system installed on the laptop? If yes, can you connect with windows? If yes, you can use windows to find out what you need to know to configure linux. If not, there is most likely an administrator you can talk to to get the information.
The channel, you can set up the wireless card to 'scan' with the 'auto' setting. In order for you to get see how, open up Konqueror, in the location where you enter URL's, clear teh line, and type 'man:/iwconfig' and press enter. You will get a man page for iwconfig that you can read through. In the channel section, it explains the ways you can select specific channel numbers, or allow the card to scan.
Public sites usually use DHCP to assign IP addresses. If this is the case, after you run Wavelan, try the command 'pump -i ath0' and see if will connect. The ath0 is the name Knoppix calls yoru wireless card, it may be different that ath0, could be ath1 or wlan0. Use the one Knoppix calls your card. There is a Wireless lan manager also on Knoppix you can bring it up to see what networks can 'see'. I have not used the version on 5.1.1. You can give it a go and see what you can see.
Sorry about the modem thing, I really meant to say adapter.
For the setting, I used iwconfig to setup the adapter. First I went to the manual to take at the look on how to set the iwconfig myself. First I used Wavelan again to check the setting but i didn't get is configured. Then I used the iwconfig to the set the channel to auto so I could scan channels. This is what I got
Code:
root@Knoppix:/# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"" Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Invalid
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level=-256 dBm Noise level=-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
eth1 no wireless extensions.
root@Knoppix:/# iwconfig eth0 channel auto
Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04) :
SET failed on device eth0 ; Invalid argument.
root@Knoppix:/#
As you can see I couldn't change the channel.
I can see that the adapter is installed so I thought I would try KWifiManager to see if would pick something up. When I tried this previously, I got the message that the the adapter was not connected. But this time it said that the signal was zero, so what I'm trying to say is that the network adapter worked but I just couldn't get it connected.
I don't know what to do to get this thing to work But I am willing to try. But as a last consideration I would like to change my distro and go to a more perminif there is no hope.
I tried the "auto" frequency setting on my card, it is invalid for this card also. In the man page it states not all settings will work for all cards, it depends on the card what will work.
So, where does that leave you? You should be able to try each channel until you can connect. I would also suggest you set the 'ESSID" to a value of any. try this sequence of commands as root.
1. iwconfig eth0 essid any channel 1 mode managed ( enter ) There shoudl be no error messages. If there are, the command didn't work.
2. iwconfig ( enter ) This just displays the current settings.
3. ifconfig ( enter ) This shows the status of the interfaces. If eth0 doesn't show up, it is down. Try 'pump -i eth0' ( enter ) This does a dhcp request and tries to activate the interface. Do another ifconfig to see if the interface is up.
4. If the channel is wrong, you do not 'see' the access point, then if the interface is up, down it with the command 'ifconfig eth0 down'.
5.Go to step 1 and try the next channel. Note this is a clossed loop, there is no I give up instruction...
Use the arrow keys to retrieve your old typing to make the whole thing less painful...
Ok, i started trying that again and I started with channel 1 and I also used the essid that my school provides so that way I know that I have connect to that. (I also tried it with the essid set to any). I was able to change the channel. But when i checked the ifconfig I didn't get the adapter on there. So then I tried the use the pump command
pump -i eth1 (This time my wifi adapter was eth1 instead of eth2)
I get an error that the operation failed.
So then i took a look at man of ifconfig to see if can get the adapter up and running. But nothing worked.
I would suggest you talk to the people at your school to see if you have all the information you need to connect. You can activate the adapter now, and that is a step forward. One more command to help you out. 'iwlist eth1 scan'.
This command will scan for wireless access points in reach, it will show you if you can get a signal from what ever access points are there. It will only work if ifconfig shows you adapter as active.
Pump may not get you an IP address if there is no DHCP server at your school. You may have to assign an IP address. This is why you need to talk to the people who maintain the network.
I have concluded that I need a different driver for this to work. It seems that my adapter won't activate so I think what may fix the problem is download the new drivers but I don't know which ones, and I am considering going to Ubuntu on my desktop.
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