Install netgear usb adapter ma 111 suse 8.1
 

hi,

i have a problem:
i just installed suse 8.1 on my laptop and tried to install my
netgear wireless lan usb adapter ma111.
The thing is that i have no clue how to install it, because its
my first time i use linux.

any help?

thx

Bonomono

Any luck?
 

Hi Bonomono,

Did you ever have any luck with installing the MA111 USB adapter? I've recently installed SuSe9 as a Windows replacement, but don't know where to start with installing the wireless adapter.

Cheers,
Keith

Hi Keith,

Im sorry but i still havent managed to
install the MA111, but im still trying - so
i you have any suggestions.

thx

Bonomono

You probably want to start at http://www.linux-wlan.org where you can download the Linux wlan-ng drivers, which are compatible with Netgear's MA-111. But be aware: The installation can be a little tricky sometimes.

Cheers

Andee

Bonomono,

Not sure if you're still having problems with the adapter but finally got round to installing it and getting it working today. Currently using SuSe 9.0 with the USB adapter installed and running happily.

As Andee mentioned above, the wlan-ng drivers are extremely helpful (need to make sure you have the pre11 source or higher though otherwise the MA111 isn't included in the list of supported adapters).

Keith

Could you please be so kind and go through what you did to get it working? You must be the only person in the world to get it working as I've been searching everywhere for someone!

Many thanks

Okay here is a minimal how-to:

1.) Go to ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/ and download the tarball (I use the 0.2 release but feel free to try the 0.2.1 prerelease if you want to).

2.) Crack the tarball (#tar zxvf /tmp/linux-wlan-ng-0.2.1-pre9.tar.gz).

3.) Make sure you have the sourcecode of your current kernel installed. (You don't have to compile the whole kernel! Just make sure you have it on your harddrive.)

4.) Change to the directory where you unpacked the tarball, make sure you have root rights.

5.) Run ./Configure and answer the following questions as shown below:

# ------------- Linux WLAN Configuration Script -------------
#
# The default responses are correct for most users.
#
# Build Prism2.x PCMCIA Card Services (_cs) driver? (y/n) [n]: n
#
# Build Prism2 PLX9052 based PCI (_plx) adapter driver? (y/n) [n]: n
#
# Build Prism2.5 native PCI (_pci) driver? (y/n) [n]: n
#
# Build Prism2.5 USB (_usb) driver? (y/n) [y]: y
#
# Linux source directory [/usr/src/linux]:
#
# The kernel source tree is version 2.4.18.
# The current kernel build date is Sun Mar 17 04:51:47 2002.
#
#
# Alternate target install root directory on host []:
# Module install directory [/lib/modules/2.4.18]:
#
# It looks like you have a BSD-ish init file setup.
# You'll need to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.S to invoke /etc/rc.d/rc.wlan (for
# ISA/PCMCIA cards) so that wlan cards will be started at boot time.
#
# Target Architecture? (i386, ppc, arm, or alpha) [i386]:
#
# Prefix for build host compiler? (rarely needed) []:
#
# Compiling with a cross compiler? (y/n) [n]:
#
# Build for debugging (see doc/config.debug) (y/n) [n]:
#
#
# Configuration successful.

6.) Run #make all

7.) Run #make install

8.) #cp /etc/wlan/wlancfg-DEFAULT /etc/wlan/wlancfg-MyNetwork

9.) edit /etc/wlan/wlan.conf and change the SSID_wlan0 line to:
SSID_wlan0="MyNetwork"

10.) edit /etc/wlan/wlancfg-MyNetwork, and make any necessary changes
necessary to support your network.

11.) Make sure the drivers get loaded at boottime. Probably the easiest thing is to add the following lines to your rc.local file:

modprobe prism2_usb
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<your APs SSID> authtype=opensystem
ifconfig wlan0 <yourIP> netmask <yourNetmask> broadcast <yourBroadcast>
route add default gw <yourGateway>

12.) Add the following line to /etc/modules.conf:

alias wlan0 prism2_usb

13.) Restart your system

Hope this helps. Please feel free to ask, if you have any further questions.

Cheers
Andee

MA111 on SuSE
 

Hi Nic,

Andee has covered most of the work involved below. A few SuSE specifics I went through arguing with it once installed included...

- Replacing the object files that SuSE has pre-installed with the WLAN-NG ones (for some reason these didn't install to the same location so SuSE insisted on continuing to use it's own).
- To pick the adapter on bootup, I only added the alias into the modules.conf file - didn't do any of the other stuff in rc.local that Andee mentioned.
- In terms of configuring the TCP/IP side of things, create an ifcfg-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/network. Set the adapter up as hotplug as the type. One strange point I had to do was tell SuSE this WASN'T a wireless card (wireless='no' in the ifcfg-wlan0 file). A bit of a kludge but it lets WLAN-NG get on with running the card and stops SuSE from helping/interfering.

Think that covers most things - firewall configs and stuff should be fairly simple once the card is up and running.

If you have any specific questions or I can help, feel free to e-mail me.

Keith

P.S
 

One thing i forgot to mention.

Andee - You've referenced the pre9 version of the drivers - according to the history I thought you needed the pre11 version for the MA111 hardware identifier?

Thank you very much! I get working on it now!

Reply
 

Hi all

Okay. I've gotten up to the "yes no" part. After that, it says it can't find my kernel or something like that.

Genuine ND said to make sure you have your kernel source code in there; I'm guessing I don't. So what do I have to do now?

You are right, sorry about that. When I installed the driver, I used pre15. (I think.)

You have to install the kernel-source from CD or download the appropriate version from the Internet. If you are using SuSE you can probably use YaST2 for that task, but I am not too sure as I have only little experience with SuSE. Maybe brundles can help...

I had to recompile my kernel because MDK9.2 doesn't have the source built into the distro...:eek:
I got the kernelSOURCE code off their site, and RPM'ed it into '/usr/src/linux/' I installed the WLAN drivers into both the LINUX Dir, and the linux-MDK9.2KERNELVERSION, just to be on the safe side. Then I did the following:

1. 'make ./config' for the WLAN dirvers and set them into the kernel source. (/usr/src/linux/ and /usr/src/linux-2.4.xx/)

2. I then I compiled the kernel by 'make menuconfig','make bzImage','make install','make modules', and last but not least 'make modules_install'

3. I did the 'make install' for the wlan drivers

With that nothing happened, so I quit for the night. Did I do anything wrong, or do I need to add the line into RC.local. If I did something wrong can someone please forward me on what I should do next...
Thanks.

=vill3
P.s. I previously tried to install the Linux Kernel 2.6 from kernel.org, and my laptop wouldn't boot :cry: So after reinstalling Mandrake I started this witch ended up taking 2 hours..Stupid Celeron. :D

Pogon - Are you using SuSE? If so, make sure the source packages are installed (documented in the reference manual as kernel-source, gcc, binutils and glibc-devel). once that's done, cd to /usr/src/linux and use "make cloneconfig". That should get you a make file based no the current kernel without having to build your own.

Vill3 - have you checked the message logs (/var/log/messages) to see what it comes out with on detecting the adapter? Is Mandrake detecting it but just doing nothing with it (as SuSE was until I installed a newer version of the wlan-ng drivers)?

Reply
 

I'm using RedHat 9.

By the way! I got up to step 10 in GenuineND's guide.
I tried editing wlan.conf in KWrite, but it says I don't have write permission to save it. :mad:

What now!