Hi everyone,

Newbie here, I'm having a little trouble using ndiswrapper to install drivers for my netgear card. Here is what I did:

1. Went into the windows directory that the netgear cd created, and looked in the folders driver. Found 3 files, something.arm, something.inf, and something. sys. Grabbed all 3 on a zip disk and booted linux.

2. Put both the inf and sys files into /lib/windrivers. I put the arm file into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware because I read somewhere that the arm file is the firmware. Installed and ran ndiswrapper -i on the inf file. Here is the output:

[root@00-0B-DB-9D-E1-11 windrivers]# ndiswrapper -i netwg511.inf
Installing netwg511
Warning: Cannot locate
Warning: Cannot locate
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMICB.sys
Warning: Cannot locate WG511DCB.arm
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMRES.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMIOC.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCFG.cpl
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCFG.hlp
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCSH.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMSTA.exe
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMDOM.ini
Warning: Cannot locate
Warning: Cannot locate
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMICB.sys
Warning: Cannot locate WG511DCB.arm
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMRES.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMIOC.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCFG.cpl
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCFG.hlp
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMCSH.dll
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMSTA.exe
Warning: Cannot locate PRISMDOM.ini

3. lspci showed:
03:00.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation Intersil ISL3890 [Prism GT/Prism Duette] (rev 01)

4. ndiswrapper -l shows:
[root@00-0B-DB-9D-E1-11 windrivers]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
inffile invalid driver!
netwg511 invalid driver!

5. dmesg shows:
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')
eth1: hot unplug detected
eth1: removing device
divert: freeing divert_blk for eth1
PCI: Enabling device 0000:03:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:03:00.0[A] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')
eth1: islpci_open()
eth1: resetting device...
eth1: uploading firmware...
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'
eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3890')


And my card is not lighting up or anything. So, based on that information, is anyone willing to help out? I checked out every other thread for both wireless set up and this particular card, and they seemed to not run into the problems that I ran into. Thanks in advance!

Zip

anyone??

Hello zippo85,

I would advise against using ndiswrapper and instead go with this bespoke project. I think your card needs additional firmware to get it running. The project I have linked to is designed specifically for your card's chipset. Hope this helps.
Regards
Chris

Thank you! After a few attempts, I finally put the firmware in the correct folder. I'm not sure which one, because I put it in any folder that was labelled hotplug/firmware. Eventually the lights on my card came on. Now I just have to figure out the configurations but that's a different story ;-)

Ok, I had the same issue and snecklifter provides the fix, if you can go to the site and figure out what they are talking about. I am a relitively goog Linux guy, but I still had trouble with this... thought it's not that bad.

Hit the website: htttp://prism54.org and go to the firmware section.
You'll download a file something like this:

1.0.4.3.arm

As root, move this file to your hotplug/firmware directory... for me it was: /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware

You will need to also rename this file too... it needs to be the name of the firmware followed by "bin" and then the version of the kernel you have. For me this file was renamed to:

isl3890.bin-2.6.8.1-2-386

That's it... Plug in the card and boom, the light should go on!

I hope this helps.

MrKnisely

i was trying to configure the same wi-fi card on my laptop. i have found this thread and followed the instructions to download and install prism driver and firmware. it returned no error during installation.


but the card still wasn't recognized by the system, when i ran 'iwconfig', it displays

'lo no wireless extensions
eth0 no wireless extensions
eth1 not ready essid='netgear' nickname:none'

what should i do to fix it?

anyone would like to help me on this?

i really like to use linux box on my laptop instead of windows...

thanks in advance

hi,

i finally got Netgear WG511 working on my IBM thinkpad T23/Xandros 3.0 deluxe machine. thought it'll be nice to share my successful experience .

1 download Windows XP driver for the WG511 from Netgear
http://www.netgear.com/support/suppo...asp?dnldID=424 this driver contains linux Prism54 driver as well, follow the instruction in the package to compile the linux driver for WG511

2 Install the firmware
get firmware from http://prism54.org/ , obtain the 1.0.4.3.arm file - There is a link to it in the Requirements section. Now, download this, and move it into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware . Rename it to "isl3890".

3. restart computer

4. woola, netgear WG511 is up and running

notes: you might need to tweak in network connection settings a bit in the linux control center, for me, WG511's indicator lightens up as long as i put the firmware in the right folder,
but i have to renew ip address for the wireless WG511 / disable ethernet interface eth0 before i saw the yellow active byte transfer lamp lightens up on the WG511 card.

resources used:
http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/15-...and-Linux.html
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=177446

Great to read you got it going.

I had just started reading back over my notes of when I was having this issue.

The placing the firmware file and renaming it properly was what was triping me up too.

Cheers!

MrKnisely