Ndiswrapper and a Netgear MA521.

Brakki · 03-31-2004, 06:01 AM

Fedora Core 1
Kernel 2.4.22-1.2174.nptl
RPMs from ndiswrapper.sf.net

I've got the Netgear card plugged in the PCMCIA slot, and the power LED is on. I've installed the ndiswrapper RPMs, and ndiswrapper.o is present in /lib/modules/kernel-2.4.22-1.2174.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper. I've downloaded the Windows XP driver from Realtek's website, and it is located in /usr/src/ndiswrapper/windriver/, and I've ndiswrapper -i'd it to the right place. net8180 is present in /etc/ndiswrapper.
ndiswrapper -l lists net8180 present, so it sees the card. modprobe ndiswrapper gives me no information regarding wlan0, however. There is no output after loading the module.

Anybody have a clue as to what I could do to get the card working?

kparsha · 03-31-2004, 06:39 PM

after u do
% ndiswrapper -i <driver.inf>
% ndiswrapper -l # This shd show that the inf file is loaded. Dose not mean ur
Wireless card is detected.
% modprobe ndiswrapper # This loads the NDIS Wrapper
% dmesg # This shd give u the result of the modprobe. If it works then u shd see wlan some thing and ur WLAN mac address.

You shd get more relivent info from the site http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
and the INSTALL file from the ndiswrapper-0.6.tar.gz.

Brakki · 04-01-2004, 05:56 AM

Actually, the documentation does say that if ndiswrapper -l shows something along the lines of
net8180 present
(note the present) then a piece of hardware has been detected that uses that driver.

Hangdog42 · 04-01-2004, 07:48 AM

Quote:

There is no output after loading the module

OK, it shouldn't give you any output. All modprobe does is load the module into the kernel. If that goes without a hitch, then use iwconfig to set your card. If you run iwconfig without any parameters, it will tell you what device has wireless capability. You could also use ifconfig to see if wlan0 exists.

Brakki · 04-01-2004, 12:41 PM

I thought the doc said that after modprobing it should output something like
wlan0 and then the hardware address of the cad
Did I read it wrong and I'm supposed to dmesg or tail /var/log/messages to get that info?

Hangdog42 · 04-01-2004, 01:19 PM

I don't think modprobe is supposed to return any information, but I may be wrong. In either case, I think you're missing the bigger picture, which is that I think everything has gone correctly for you and you just need to use iwconfig to set up the card configuration. So far you have yet to post anything that suggests ndiswrapper isn't working.

As I said earlier, if you run iwconfig without any options, you should see what devices have wireless capabilities. That will tell you if wlan0 is the correct device name and if you need the hardware address, that should be availble thorugh ifconfig.

Brakki · 04-02-2004, 03:24 PM

Code:

[root@localhost root]# cardctl eject
[root@localhost root]# cardctl insert
[root@localhost root]# rmmod ndiswrapper
[root@localhost root]# insmod ndiswrapper
Using /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2174.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.o
[root@localhost root]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.
 
eth0      no wireless extensions.
 
[root@localhost root]#

perrond · 05-26-2004, 12:10 AM

I cannot offer technical assitance, but I strongly feel that the manufacturers of wirelesss networking gear need to offer drivers that are compatible with Linux distributions.
I've spent over 30 hours searching for a site that lists PCMCIA cards that work flawlessly with wireless networking for Linux. Any distribution. I'm sure that wireless networking isn't new. I challenge someone with skills far greater than my own to create drivers/ hardware/ etc, that work as flawlessly as they do on Windows. This is the last hurdle for me to switch to windows full time. Can someone focus on just this problem (it is a problem) and fix it once and for all. I don't think I'm alone when I say that 10 or more lengthy steps are not acceptable to setup wireless networking. Please reply. What are the most significant challenges to this issue?

Hangdog42 · 05-28-2004, 09:54 AM

My apologies Brakki, real life intervened...I didn't mean to drop this.

Have you gotten the card to work? I've been doing a little digging and from what I can tell, this is NOT an easy card to get up and running.

I hate to point you in this direction, but there is a HUGE thread on the WPC11 drivers that seems to be relevant. You might skip to page 23 where finegan discusses the MA521 a bit. One of the themes that seems to run through that thread is that something happened with the kernel around 2.4.22 that caused difficulties for this card. I haven't seen if the 2.6.x kernels have worked. From what I can tell the kernel version is the single biggest obstacle to fixing this problem

Another relevant section from that thread would be on page 36 by prinaldi where he got it to work in Gentoo and details how. Also check out pg. 45 by Astro

Quote:

I don't think I'm alone when I say that 10 or more lengthy steps are not acceptable to setup wireless networking. Please reply. What are the most significant challenges to this issue?

Perrond, the obstacle is the card manufacturers, plain and simple. My personal nemesis is Broadcom. They supply OEM cards to a number of vendors yet refuse to write linux drivers or (even more evil) refuse to release enough information for someone else to write one. Ndiswrapper really shouldn't be necessary but is because of the pigheadedness of some card manufacturers.
<edit>
After a bit more reading, it looks as if the 2.6.x kernels may work. It looks like a kernel upgrade may be your best bet.
</edit>