I Can't connect to Internet on Puppy Linux. I have Acer Aspire 5735-4624 with a AR5B91 wireless network adaptor. I tried ndiswrapper with a windows driver but it didn't work. Help!

Welcome to LQ.

This isn't really too helpful in understanding the problem. From the command line, (as root, probably), the command "ndiswrapper -l" should indicate if the Windows driver is correctly installed.

The command "ifconfig" will give the current status of your network connections. Let's start there. If you can check ndiswrapper and ifconfig, that will help.

I tried to use ndiswrapper to load the netathw.inf driver, but I still couldn't get on the internet. It didn't detect any new interface.

What is the output of ndiswrapper -l?

The first time I tried ndiswrapper -l, it said,"
ls: cannot access /etc/ndiswrapper: No such file or directory."
So then I installed netathw with ndiswrapper -i netathw.inf.
Then I tried ndiswrapper -l again and it said, "netathw : driver installed device (168C:002A) present."
But I still can't get on the internet even with the netathw driver installed.

login as root
then do

I tried
ndiswrapper -i netathw.inf
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper

but that didn't work either.

What doesn't work?
What have you done after these commands?
Do you have an extra interface?
Did you configured the interface?

My internet didn't work. I tried that stuff, but I still couldn't get connected to the internet. When I tried to configure the network or whatever, It didn't detect any new devices.

are you sure you used the correct window driver?
Take a look at
http://global.acer.com/support/download.htm
or
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers...k/as_5730.html

try the driver for XP, vista driver is known not to work with ndiswrapper

I tried the drivers for xp and vista and they both didn't work. I went to
http://global.acer.com/support/download.htm
and
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers...k/as_5730.html
and tried those drivers but they didn't work either. I don't think there's any way for me to connect to the internet on Puppy Linux. I might just have to use Ubuntu.

Where did you find the XP drivers?

I popped Puppy on a USB stick and booted it, pulled down the drivers for the AR5B91 off the Acer website.

These are for the Vista version:
I think this has to do with turning it "on." I think the problem is similiar to a "cardctl eject" I used to have when using a card adaptor.

Everything is associated, but in the box's mind, it isn't turned "on."

I couldn't find any official XP drivers, and the non-official drivers I found gave: "forcing parameter MapRegisters from 256 to 64" x many.

ndiswrapper -l lists it as present, but the device still does not come up, and is not listed in iwconfig/ifconfig.

Any ideas? Thanks much,

--fl0at