Netgear MA111 working for Ubuntu "Warty" release?
 

I am having a network problem with one of the PCs on my home network. It is dual boot Win98/Ubuntu "Warty" (used to be Win98/Mandrake 9.2) and has a NETGEAR MA111 USB wireless adapter. When I use to run Mandrake 9.2 on this PC I used software called "prism2_usb" to get the network up and running. When I switched over to Ubuntu, the network did not auto-configure, so it looks like I will have to set it up again.

The problem is that I am not sure what to do to set up the networking correctly for this distro. It seems like the prism2_usb module is already loaded (if I do an lsmod), but the wlanctl-ng program I used on my old Mandrake system is not part of Ubuntu. Is there some new way of doing this now? (I know that Ubuntu is using a newer version of the kernel-- is there something built in I should be using?). I did come across a reference to a command called "iwconfig" in the man pages, but when I try to issue the commands, I get errors like "Set failed on device wlan0; Function not implemented." I am not sure if this means the wlan0 device does not exist or is not configured, or if the command I issued was malformed.

The biggest problem I am facing is not that there is not enough in terms or guides, howtos, etc., but rather that there are too many, and that each one has a different way of accomplishing what I want to do, but that way might not be appropriate for my particular set-up.

If anybody has any ideas or can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Carl Waldbieser

iwconfig is part of wireless tools but I dont know if it comes with your distro.

This card can be successfully run on linux using a program called Ndiswrapper.

ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

You will need to make sure you have wireless tools installed, that your kernel-sources are also installed and that you use the drivers listed at the ndiswrapper wiki for your card. Use the latest 0.11 version of the program for best results.
Hope this helps
Chris

Chris,

I followed the install instructions and got pretty far. When I modprobe ndiswrapper and check the system logs, driver netma111 has been added, and a device /dev/ndiswrapper has been created. However, the instructions suggest I should see:

wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

in my system log, too. I don't. And if I iwconfig, all I get is:

lo: no wireless extensions.

wlan0: no wireless extensions.

sit0: no wireless extensions.

I feel that I am close, but am maybe still missing something. Looks like the drivers are successfully created, but they're not detecting the hardware? Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Carl Waldbieser

Hi Carl,

What happens when you enter

to bring the adapter up.?

I wouldnt worry too much about not seeing the output line in dmesg as neither did I when I installed mine! I think you're good to go really. But try the above and tell me what the results are.
Regards
Chris

If I try:

$ iwconfig wlan0 up

I get:

Error: Unrecognized wireless request "up".

If I try:

$ ifconfig wlan0 up

I get:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Unknown device.

I am not sure where the wlan0 device is supposed to be-- doesn't look like it lives in the normal /dev file system. It's really kind of strange. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Carl Waldbieser

I'm not entirely sure you have wireless tools installed/configured correctly. iwconfig wlan0 up should bring your network interface up but doesnt. It says some functions are not implemented - all a bit worrying. If you can bare it I would say upgrade to mandrake 10.1. I had issues with 9.2 myself this time last year. My 10.1 CE install has been and continues to be a breeze to use.
If this isnt possible I would look at visiting Jean.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...nux/Tools.html

and downloading the latest version. Following a successful install of wireless tools, remove and reinstall your driver and ndiswrapper and you should be laughing.
Regards
Chris

Well, I think I finally found a solution! I had to download the linux-wlanctl-ng.deb package from another computer and then sneaker-net it to the PC with the wireless adapter. I installed the package (using dpkg -i), and then issued the following commands which I got off the wlanctl-ng website:

$ sudo modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1
$ sudo wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
$ sudo wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<my SSID> authtype=opensystem
$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 <IP addr>

This seemed to work, as ifconfig showed wlan0 as a functional interface, and I was able to confgure a default route and reach other machines on my network. I posted this solution in the (unofficial) Ubuntu forums, so hopefully someone will try to get things working smoother for their next release.

I am still a little confused on some points, though. From my reading, it seems like iwconfig and wlanctl-ng both make use of the prism2_usb module. I am still not entirely clear what these different pieces of software represent. I am thinking that iwconfig and wlanctl-ng are "front-end" programs that are used for configuring wireless interface drivers, and ndiswrapper is a "back-end" wrapper around drivers, but I am not sure how prism2_usb fits in the picture. Is it a driver?

Anyway, thanks for your help. Hopefully, as this distro evolves, it will become easier for me to configure the networking, but for now, I am glad it just works.

Carl Waldbieser

Hi Carl,

You are right about ndiswrapper. iwconfig is the wireless tools package and acts in many ways similar to ifconfig. See iwconfig --help for more details.
Regards
Chris

Where the heck do you download the linux-wlanctl-ng package at. I've not been able to find it anywhere. Is the new version of ubuntu more ready to handle the MA111?

Jason