Hi folks - linux newbie needs help!

I've just installed FC3 and am trying to install the bcmwl5.inf driver for a belkin f5d7000 wireless card.
When I enter the command "/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper" the system just freezes. I tried "/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l" and received "bcmwl5 hardware present" - the driver is present in "/etc/ndiswrapper"- I didn't receive any errors from the "make install" either.

Can anyone suggest anything (using kernel 2.6.9-1.667smp), I heard there might be a problem with acpi but I'm not sure how to disable this or if it's even accurate.

Thanks for any advice.

Hey topcatzz,

I know exactly the problem you're having. You got that driver from the belkin site didn't you? That one will lock up your system as I found out to my cost. CHeck out my entry on this site's HCL. If you are using ndiswrapper to run your card then use the following link to get the driver as I can guarantee it works.

http://downloads.emachines.com/netwo..._3_20_23_0.zip

Regards
Chris

Cheers Chris,

I don't know what I'm doing in Linux so I presumed it was something I was doing wrong: uninstalled the old driver, installed the one from your link and my machine didn't break- winner!

Just one more question if I can: now that FC3 knows about my card - I'm trying to configure the interface but when I run "/sbin/iwconfig" the AP section is just 00 00 00 00 00 00 - is this supposed to be the mac address of the router? Any good guides for configuring the nic in fc3?


Once again cheers for the help man!

Tony

Hi Tony,

Glad to be of help. I knew what was wrong as soon as I read system freeze - ndiswrapper!

With regards to the 0's yes thats the mac address for the router. You just need to follow the install guide through to complete. What will get you going is setting the essid to whatever your system's ssid is and then bringing up the interface using
which will obtain an ip address and then you should be away. Dont forget to automate the procedure using ndiswrapper -m once you're happy everything is okay.
Regards
Chris

Thanks for getting back to me again - this is killing me, I can't get an IP!

When I try ifup wlan0 I get the following message:

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20)
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported

Determining IP information for wlan0... failed

So I tried to see if I can see the AP...

root@localhost tony# /sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan

wlan0 Scan completed
Cell 01 - Address: 62:31:40:F1:7B:F8
ESSID:"Belkin54g
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.472GHz (Channel 13)
Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Encryption keyff
Bit Rate:1Mb/s
Bit Rate:2Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100

I have set the mode, the channel and the SSID (not sure how to set the MAC) all to no avail. Any advice would be much appreciated as I am out of options (and hair)!

cheers

topcatzz,

Dont stress it, you're almost there. Dont be trying to set bit rates and such, leave that up to the card and router to decide whats best. Using
will set the ssid for your card. Follow this using
which will attempt to obtain an ip from the router using DHCP. If this fails you must set the IP manually but this shouldn't be necessary.
I've just noticed your AP is set in ad-hoc mode therefore it wont assign an IP address. Are you attempting to connect to another computer and not a router? In this case you'll want to go ahead and set a static IP probably. Something like 192.168.2.50.
Hope this helps
Chris

Change your channel to either 1, 6 or 11 as well. Channel 13 may give you some problems.

day three - and it isn't getting any better! :-)

I tried setting the essid and then "/sbin/ifup wlan0" and it came back with "no configuration detected" or something similar. I set the network properties in the network devices GUI which seemed to get round this problem, but still didn't get an IP address from the router. I changed the channel to 1 as well without joy.

I'm guessing that I maybe need to go for a static IP address but I don't understand what the problem is with the dhcp server from the router?

You shouldn't have to worry about setting anything up with the GUI, changing channels, etc. If you are using encryption, you need to use iwconfig to set the proper mode for the encrytion before you assign the essid...eg. I use:
iwconfig wlan0 key open myhexkeyxx
If you're not using encryption, just set the essid like you have been. It looks like you'll be fine just setting the essid since you're getting a mac address.
Next, try dhcpcd instead of ifup. I use:
dhcpcd -t 10 -d wlan0
The "-t 10" keeps it from hanging if the router won't hand out an IP, and the "-d" just toggles debugging output...it's really not necessary. Give that a try and see what happens. If you get it to work that way, you can add it to your rc.local and have your wireless up and running everytime you boot.
Good luck.

I am getting a funny kind of error... I am fairly new to linux and I am learning as I go ... but this is beyond my knowledge as to what causes this strange error..


/+++++++++++++++++++++++++++/

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Input/output error.

Determining IP information for eth1... done.

/==============================/
After this when I do /sbin/iwconfig... it

am getting a funny kind of error... I am fairly new to linux and I am learning as I go ... but this is beyond my knowledge as to what causes this strange error..


/+++++++++++++++++++++++++++/

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Input/output error.

Determining IP information for eth1... done.

/==============================/
After this when I do /sbin/iwconfig... it shows that is has acquired ESSID and channel # and all the other stuff... HOWEVER i AM NOT ABLE TO GET ON INTERNET.. AND i AM NEITHER ABLE TO PING ANY WEBSITE EITHER....
ping google.com.... does not work either.....


so I shutdown my laptop and maybe try some other time and it magically starts working.... can anybody help me out which this problem.

thanx

Honestly?
Upgrade to Fedora Core 3 or try a different driver, that's if you're using ndiswrapper as you dont specifically say you are. Check out your card and its chipset and use a driver from this list. At best do both. Core 3 handles wireless much better. As a tip you wont be able to ping google.com or microsoft.com because all of the main sites have proxies and firewalls and remote hosting and such - basically you wont get a response. If you want to try pinging somewhere that definitely gives a response use academic instutions. My uni is a good start. www.hud.ac.uk.
Regards
Chris

HI Chris-

Thanx for the input. I was not specific as to what configuration I have - so here is a little bit of history...

I currrently have GateWay Solo 2550 laptop - 550MHZ, 6 Gb HDD, 224 Mb RAM.

I have Netgear WG511 wireless card, which I has successfuly installed before I reinstalled FC2 (since I has accidently messed up Logical links for XTerm and I could not login after I booted)

So I went ahead and reinstalled FC2 and drivers for Netgear WG511 card from prism54.org website (as I had done it previously) and it started working like a charm. However, I do get the following error from time to time and it is driving me nuts as to what is causing this

Reviews: 0

STRANGE STUFF WITH FEDORA Core 2 ( post #10)

am getting a funny kind of error... I am fairly new to linux and I am learning as I go ... but this is beyond my knowledge as to what causes this strange error..


/+++++++++++++++++++++++++++/

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Input/output error.

Determining IP information for eth1... done.

/==============================/

I can upgrade to FC3 but I want to learn more about Linux and want to figure out the real cause for the error since I did not have such problems prior.

Anyways, if you think you can help me out then it would be great, else I will upgrade to FC3.

thanx
Vrajesh

I would do one of two things. Visit Jean to upgrade your wireless tools package or try a new/different driver for your wireless card.
Regards
Chris

I got rid of this error by removing the RATE line from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0

Or maybe in your case the file would be ifcfg-eth1.

I have a Dell 8600 with a Dell 1350 Mini-PCI 802.11g card. I can get the interface up and running from a little script I wrote (which basically calls iwconfig to set the SSID and WEP Key and then called dhclient wlan0). But I just can't get it to start up properly at boot-time. I can't understand it.