I was able to install ndiswrapper and loaded the driver. Ran ndiswrapper -m and modprobe ndiswrapper. after a reboot, while loading modules I get an error and the boot freezes. The drivers I am using are the bcmwl5. I'm not sure of that the error on boot means. I get:

I tried removing the module from /lib/modules/<version>/misc/ndiswrapper.ko and it boots fine but when I copy it back and run modprobe ndiswrapper i get a segmentation fault. The list I get when I run dmesg is to long to put here, but it ends with the below as well.

-----------

Stack: <and a lot of hex numbers in sets of 8.>

Call Trace:
[<c0308c29>] klist_remove+0xd/0x27
[<c02388af>] bus_remove_driver+ox34/0x55
[<c0239050>] driver_unregister+0x8/0x13
[<c01d9301>] pci_unregister_driver+0xd/0x13
[<f892dc41>] loader_exit+0x83/0x132 [ndiswrapper]
[<f893dec3>] module_cleanup+0x6/0x8f [ndiswrapper]
[<f8874077>] wraper_init+0x77/0x1bf [ndiswrapper]
[<c0134268>] sys_init_module+0xbb/0x1b5
[<c0102ea1>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb

Code: <hex numbers in sets of 2>

/etc/rc.d/rc/sysinit: line 165: 940 Segmentation falut modprobe$1 >/dev/null 2>&1
networkACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LACI] enabled at IRQ5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:06.0[A] -> Link [LACI] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:06.0 to 64
intel8x0_mesure_ac97_clock: measured 52839 usecs
intel8x0: clocking to 47407

--------
and it just freezes there. I have no idea what this means. I am kind of a noob with linux, I've used linux before but have been away from it for a long time. Can ANYONE help me? Please!!

Thank you

onthefritz

Can anyone help me?? I think it is just an error loading the module. I can remove the module for ndiswrapper and it boots fine. Please can someone help me??

Some iformation is required, like which kernel, ndiswrapper verion being used, which ethernet/wireless interface and your IRQ's. It looks like you are having either a 4k stack issue, an IRQ conflict issue or your attemting to use the wrong Windows driver modules for your ethernet or wireless device.

cat /proc/interrupts
/sbin/lspci -v
uname -r


For now keep the ndiswrapper module from loading, and if you have not already done so upgrade your FC4 to the current versions of the packages.

I have connected my system with a hardwire connection, I downloaded all the updates. this is also how I installed ndiswrapper (i ran yum -i ndiswrapper and it installed) it is version 1.5 and I it installed ther kernel RPM as well.

Here is the info from those commands.

cat /proc/interrupts

I didn't want to put out all the info from this command so I found this. I think it is what we are looking for

01:08.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN
Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Belkin: Unknown device 7000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at e4004000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

----------------

root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 257761 XT-PIC timer
1: 5 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 108016 XT-PIC SysKonnect SK-98xx, NVidia nForce2, ehci_hcd:usb1, eth1
7: 2 XT-PIC parport0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
9: 4677 XT-PIC acpi, ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci1394
11: 14069 XT-PIC libata, ohci_hcd:usb2, ndiswrapper
12: 110 XT-PIC i8042
15: 65621 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
ERR: 0

----------------------

[root@localhost ~]# uname -r
2.6.14-1.1653_FC4

so kernel version 2.6.14

OK, three things...

First ndiswrapper is now at version 1.7 it would be a good idea to use it instead of the built rpm version.You will need to remove the rpm version before building and installing ndiswrapper-1.7, building is not hard, all you need to do after downloading and extracting is (as root);

make distclean
make
make install

You will need the kernel source installed before starting if you deciede to use ndiswrapper-1.7 instead.


Second, try adding apm=off to the kernel line in the /boot/grub.grub.conf file, example below;

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-rc7 ro root=LABEL=/ quiet vga=790 apm=off

Red Hat / Fedora supplied kernels are known to be build with both apm and acpi drivers, the result is apm runs before acpi. This can and has caused IRQ problems. For comparision here is the output from my laptop(no apm in my kernel);

$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 79398091 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 22435 IO-APIC-edge i8042
8: 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
11: 17096 IO-APIC-level acpi
12: 2406088 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 90055 IO-APIC-edge ide0
15: 707301 IO-APIC-edge ide1
169: 1 IO-APIC-level yenta
185: 39 IO-APIC-level SiS SI7012, SiS SI7013 Modem
193: 0 IO-APIC-level ehci_hcd:usb1
201: 0 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb2
209: 0 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb3
217: 1650749 IO-APIC-level ndiswrapper


Third, the Windows driver your using may be the wrong one as far as ndiswrapper is concerned. Visit the ndiswrapper site and do a quick search for your wireless device and download/use they one known to work.
Please note if your running a x86_64 kernel then ndiswrapper and the Windows driver both need to be 64-bit also.

I got the source installed, but i'm not sure how to uninstall ndiswrapper 1.5 from my system? Or will the new install overwrite the old? I installed it with yum, but i'm not sure how to uninstall it because I can't find the package manager(the only one i can find only installs and uninstalls the stuff on the CD). Thank you for all your help so far!!

ok, it turned out to be a bad driver. So I can boot fine now, and the interface shows up as wlan0. But when I go to scan, it comes back with nothing. (I know the wireless is setup because there are two laptops in the house that are one it. My system was on it until I switched to linux.) Do you have any idea of what could be the problem? or should I create a new thread so others can check it out?

Oh BTW I switched to Mandriva 2006 (free) because it is a bit more KDE based and I wanted to check out another distro. When setting up Mandriva I ran into the same problem. I have not updated the kernel yet (I was going to do that when I got the wireless running but I plan to, Do I need to reinstall ndiswrapper on the new kernel or will it transfer over from the old?)

Differnet kernel, different distro... ndiswrapper needs to be re-installed;

make distclean
make
make install

I wiped FC4 off and I installed ndiswrapper fresh. I played around with the MCC (mandrake's computer configuration tool) and couldn't find anything. even if I put in the essid and everything.

It would be better to re-post your wireless problem in the Mandriva forum since you switch to Mandriva 2006 and update your profile.

Tell the problem and provide the needed information like which wireless device your having the problem with. You can also check the HCL for your wireless device;

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/10