Running Slackware and installing Netgear WG511 wireless card I have followed all instructions in a tutorial to get my wireless card running, everything has worked up till now (so far I have installed ndiswrapper, used it to create the right driver for my wireless card, which outputs the correct info on ndiswrapper -l [driver installed, hardware present]) but when I try "modprobe ndiswrapper", which is supposed to create wlan0 and connect my wireless card, it does not seem to do anything at all. I tried doing it several times, removing it with rmmod and recreating it but everytime I run iwconfig or ifconfig, no changes have been made.

I've made it this far and I've tried about 4 different driver versions which all worked up until this point.

Please, any ideas?

Where did you get the idea of these magical qualities of ndiswrapper????

You (not ndiswrapper) need to either have or create a wlan0 configuration file, a sample one is below. After loading the ndiswrapper modules try following the advice here;

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...gure_interface

Sample ifcfg-wlan0 file;

IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=yes
ONHOTPLUG=yes
USERCTL=yes
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
HWADDR=
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=My_Computer_Name_Here
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ESSID=
CHANNEL=1
MODE=Auto
RATE=Auto

Make sure wlan0 is aliased to ndiswrapper in /etc/modules.conf.

Then modprobe ndiswrapper (you can check this is loaded with lsmod)

Then you can set up the interface with iwconfig (man iwconfig for details)

eg:

# iwconfig wlan0 essid MY-SSID ...(etc)

then you can bring up the interface with ifup as you would any other ethernet interface:

# ifup wlan0

Hope this helps.

I'm sorry Lenard, to put myself at an even lower level haha, but being brand new at linux I'm having a hard time finding the ifcfg-wlan0 file, or is it something I have to create, and if so...where?

Plus, I got the idea that ndiswrapper would do this because thats what all tutorials say, even in the link you gave me, I quote

"To load the module type modprobe ndiswrapper. If you get no error, the driver should now be loaded. You can verify this by checking the system log produced by dmesg. If the driver is loaded successfully, you should see a message in the system log

ndiswrapper version <version> loaded

Make sure the version <version> here matches the version of ndiswrapper package that you downloaded and installed. If you get a different version, you have an old version of package, which you should uninstall, and then go back to step 1."

I included that last section because I was wondering if my ndiswrapper may not be workin correcty because its ver 1.15, this is because it was easer for me to just install an earlier version that is compatible with gcc 3.3, then to upgrade to 3.4, which I dont know how to do.

There are several versions of that card. Some can not be made to work at all (Made in China), Some use MadWifi, Some have Prism chipsets and work from Native drivers.

Under any circumstance, you should not be using ndiswrapper ... It's amazing to me that so many people think ndiswrapper is a necessary element of Linux.

Tell us the exact model number of your card, including "version #, and where it was made. If you could verify what chipset it uses, that would be even better.

At the risk of derailing this thread, for many of us, ndiswrapper IS a necessary element of Linux.

NETGEAR 54 Mbps Wireless PC CArd, 320bit CardBus WG511 (version 1) MADE IN TAIWAN

PCIID = 8086:7111

I'm not exactly sure how to determine the chipset, but if you tell me how I'll get it for you.

As long as it's "version 1" (not "revision 1"), you're in good shape. That's a Prism54 chipset, driver available at http://prism54.org/

To hangdog I think we've had this conversation before ... ndiswrapper, VMware, Wine, etc. will never be a part of any system I own or service. I maintain a dual boot system for those occasions when I need to run a Windows program.

/sbin/cardctrl ident
or
lspci -n

You can find the chipset using "lspci -v" as root. Also, take a look in the ndiswrapper wiki. http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m....php/Main_Page
They have an hcl list with URLs to the windows drivers that work the best with ndiswrapper. Sometimes the driver supplied with the device will not work with ndiswrapper.

The ifcfg-wlan0 file is most likely in /etc/sysconfig/network/, however I don't know if slackware uses that configuration file. Slackware may instead set up the device directly using a script in /etc/init.d.

On my SuSE Amd64 laptop, I had a problem with the version of ndiswrapper that was supplied by SuSE 10.1's package. I uninstalled that version and installed from the ndiswrapper source I used for SuSE 10.0. My particular problem was that the "modprobe ndiswrapper" command would fail. However, there was an error message displayed, which you didn't see, so using an earlier version of ndiswrapper may not be a solution in your case.

Make sure that you run the "ndiswrapper -m" command after wrapping the Windows ndis driver. This will produce the modprobe.conf alias line. It won't hurt to run it again if you aren't sure. If the line already exists, it won't add it twice. Also, there are a couple commands I will sometimes try. "ldconfig" and "depmod -a". The ldconfig command probably won't do anything in your case. I don't think that ndiswrapper installs a library file. The "depmod -a" might help make sure that the ndiswrapper module will get loaded in the future.

After you "modprobe ndiswrapper", does a "lsmod" listing show the ndiswrapper kernel module? One of the wireless tools programs is "iwlist". The command "iwlist wlan0 scan" should scan for and list Access Points. If it does, your wireless device is probably working. However, if wlan0 doesn't exist, I guess this won't help. Try "ifconfig" and see if there is a wireless device by another name.

Eric_T

Since you have a Netgear WG511 card the ndiswrapper module is not needed, follow the link provided by erich and download the FullMAC firmware file Version 1.0.4.3 (for ISL3880 and ISL3890) and rename the file to isl3890. This file (isl3890) is placed someplace like /lib/firmware or /etc/firmware (varies by distro used).

Make sure you have the already built modules (orinoco_cs and prism54) they can be found in the /lib/modules/<kernel-version_number/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ location, the prism54 module should be in the prism54 sub-directory.

Sample enties for the Netgear WG511 card in /etc/modprobe.conf are;

alias eth1 orinoco_cs
alias wlan0 prism54

Others have already provided the information on where to look for or to place the sample ifcfg-wlan0 I provided earlier. The same sample configuration file can be used as ifcfg-eth1 instead, just change the one line to read eth1 instead of wlan0 in the example and save it as ifcfg-eth0