Hi hope someone can help. I have an Acer Aspire 5002LM laptop and I have successfully installed Suse 10. Now I have read lots of posts regarding ndiswrapper and I have followed these, but I do not think that it is a driver issue, but I am not sure . When I install the driver nothing happens Suse just shows no signs that it can detect the card.

Some pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated

Thanks in advance

What happens when you do these steps;
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...Windows_driver
post ifconfig -a
iwconfig

Ok, when I do the steps desribed on sourceforge.net nothing happens. The driver loads ok but no lights from my card. Tried reinserting still no lights. However in the system log I get this:

Nov 20 01:54:01 linux kernel: ndiswrapper: module not supported by Novell, setting U taint flag.
Nov 20 01:54:01 linux kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
Nov 20 01:54:09 linux kernel: ACPI-0362: *** Error: Looking up [Z007] in namespace, AE_NOT_FOUND
Nov 20 01:54:09 linux kernel: search_node dbed9da0 start_node dbed9da0 return_node 00000000
Nov 20 01:54:09 linux kernel: ACPI-0457: *** Warning: [AE_NOT_CONFIGURED]: Could not resolve operands, AE_NOT_FOUND
Nov 20 01:54:09 linux kernel: ACPI-1174: *** Error: Method execution failed [\_SB_.BAT1._BST] (Node dbed9ca0), AE_NOT_FOUND
Nov 20 01:54:09 linux kernel: ACPI-0208: *** Warning: Error evaluating _BST
Nov 20 01:54:36 linux kernel: cs: pcmcia_socket0: cardbus cards are not


I am using the version of ndiswrapper that came on the SUSE disks so not sure why it says not supported by Novell.

my output from ifconfig -a is:

linux:/ # ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:9F:A0:6E:06
inet addr:192.168.0.22 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:9fff:fea0:6e06/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x1800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:168 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:168 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11267 (11.0 Kb) TX bytes:11267 (11.0 Kb)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth0 is the onboard sis900 network which also doesnt work but Im not worried about this would rather get the wireless working.

Output from iwconfig:


linux:/ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

HTH you narrow down my problem. Thanks for your help so far

Looks like it will work, for the wireless, slow down and tell me what happens for each step. When you modprobe ndiswrapper if there are no errors then you need to set it up.What happens;
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation

When I do modprobe ndiswrapper it just goes to the next line

Thats good, that means it was loaded next what did dmesg say?
Then iwconfig to see if it shows up. If that won't work,
If you are using SuSE try the SuSe way;
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...ofessional_9.2

When I type dmesg I get the same ACPI errors as shown in my previous post. Then it ends with ndiswrapper :module not supported by Novell, setting U taint flag
ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no ,smp=no)

I will try the Suse 9.2 method now

Thanks

EDIT: The Suse 9.2 method did not work either.

However, when I go to Utilities, Monitor and PCMCIA I get the message no PCMCIA controller detected.

Could this be the problem you think?

This is it here?
http://shopping.zdnet.co.uk/shopping...927538p,00.htm
Are you using the 64 bit suse and the 64 bit driver for ndiswrapper?
Check this out for pcmcia-cs I'm not sure if you even need it. Post lspci
http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/

Yes that is the laptop, but I am using 32-bit Suse and the 32-bit driver.

Guess what I got it working!!! I used the boot option acpi=noirq and when I Linux booted Suse detected the wireless card. I then set up ndiswrapper as advised and now everything works fine, no dropped packets or anything.

One last question is there a config file I can change so I do not have to keep typing acpi=noirq at startup, so it just does it automatically?? Also how can disable eth0 coming up at startup because my sis900 onboard network also starting working at the same time, and I would prefer to disable this to save system resources.


Thanks for your time and help is much appreciated

Good going, I would say to do a search on how to do them with yast. I could tell you something and it is not the SuSe way. SuSe uses yast to do most of the configuration and I'm not sure. Have Fun and good job.

In one of my many searches to get something to work, I ran across a guide and the author said something I could relate to. There are two types of linux users. The first knows exactly what he is doing and the second one uses the brute force method, thats me.