ieee80211 in Debian 4.0r1
 

As you can tell I am a n00b to debian but I do enjoying learning. I have Debian 4.0r1 installed on a Lenovo R40 laptop and was trying to make my Intel Pro 2200 b wireless card work. I am running kernel 2.6.18-5-686 and have already installed the ndiswrapper and ipw2200.

the problem I am having is with ieee80211. I have downloaded this install and performed tar xzvf ieee80211-1.2.18 on the file which extracted it to my desktop. I have opened INSTALL with 'kate' but I am a little confused at this point of what I need to do. I am assuming I need to run MAKE or MAKEFILE but I am not 100% sure. I see in the install file the line that reads

% make IEEE80211_INC=/usr/include

but when I run this I get the following error:

Checking in /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686 for ieee80211 components...
find: /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build/: No such file or directory
grep: /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build//.config: No such file or directory
grep: /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build//include/linux/autoconf.h: No such file or directory
find: /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build/: No such file or directory
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build M=/home/mercury/Desktop/ieee80211-1.2.18 modules
make: *** /lib/modules/2.6.18-5-686/build: No such file or directory. Stop.
make: *** [modules] Error 2

I have searched several forums trying to find an answer as how I need to install this and what all packages I need. I was hoping I could do it all through aptitude but it appears this one file has to be compiled from the source maybe. As I said I am totally new to this but knowledge is POWER.

Out of curiousity, why do you need to recompile it while it already exists in the kernel?

For your problem, it is searching for the source that you used for compiling your kernel. I guess you didn't recompile your kernel so it doesn't find the source.
It is a pain to recompile this ipw2200!

How did you determine that was loaded in the kernel. I ran dmesg against the /var/log/messages and I didnt see anything about ipw2200 being loaded.

ieee80211 did first make it into the kernel in 2.6.18. An older version, though[1].

I'm not sure this will fix it, but the errors don't yet make sense to me. Try installing the linux-headers-2.6.18-5-686 package.

[1] http://ieee80211.sourceforge.net/

What I mean is that your kernel already has this ipw2200 module. Your card is one of the only one supported by the kernel without doing anything.

Simply type
modprobe ipw2200
and then dmesg to check

If you have already overwritten stuffs then it could be that it doesn't work anymore!

If it works, it will say error -5 or something, you will need to put the correct firmware corresponding to the version of the driver.
To get the version :
modinfo ipw2200

Go to ipw2200.sourceforge.net and follow the instructions. Even by doing a search on LQ you should find.

edit:
oops interfered with AlucardZero
I haven't tried this method, before you had to download it.
But you probably already have everything installed!!

Here is a scaled down output of lsmod

Module Size Used by
ipw2200 93824 0
ieee80211 29416 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 5952 1 ieee80211
radeon 99744 2


Scaled output of dmesg

Linux version 2.6.18-5-686 (Debian 2.6.18.dfsg.1-13etch2) (dannf@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) #1 SMP Thu Aug 30 02:19:07 UTC 2007
/
/
/
ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
ieee80211: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.1.2kmq
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation

lspci output

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]
02:00.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1510 PC card Cardbus Controller
02:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 81)



I have done a total restage on my pc to get back to ground zero and when I go to KWiFiManager and launch it I get the WiFi Manager to launch but it says its disabled. When I perform the "scan networks" it does not return anything but I can fire up a Windows XP box and scan the network and I see a secured network in my neighborhood. I was wanting to get Wifi enabled on my pc since I travel alot and want to have my debian box capable of using wireless.

It appears that everything is loading now I am just unable to see any secure or unsecure networks at this time. Very strange.

IMO, better not use GUIs for the first installation, it just lowers you visibility.

From your log, it looks like your driver loads.
There's nothing after this I hope?

What says
iwconfig

As nx5000 pointed out,
In a fresh installation of Debian (any version above and including stable), all you need to do is download and install the firmware in /lib/firmware. Details here. No need to bang your head against the wall compiling stuff, the drivers/modules are already included, this includes ipw2200.ko and ieee80211.ko modules.
When you unpack the version 3.0 firmware, you'll have a folder with four files ending in .fw, copy or move those four files to /lib/firmware, not the folder containing them. Then re-boot to load the firmware and configure your connection.

It appears you are using KDE, I also do a minimal Debian installation and only install KDE, but I don't have much use for Kwifimanager. I usually only install knetworkconf and network-manager, not network-manager-kde. Then I go to main menu/settings/internet_network/network_settings and select my version of Debian, then click on "Administrator Mode", maximize the window and select my version of Debian again, then highlight my wireless interface and click on "Configure interface" to put in the ESSID and KEY, select Hexadecimal as this is usually the key type (I connect to a different AP every other day), then click OK, then click on "Apply" in the main configuration window.
To auto connect to the same AP upon every re-boot, add "auto eth2" to your wireless section in /etc/network/interfaces (replace eth2 with what is appropriate in your case as displayed by command ifconfig).
Example:
Details on how to set up /etc/network/interfaces can be found in /usr/share/doc/network_manager/readme.debian when network manager is installed.