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I'm new enough to Linux to be flustered by this, but familiar enough that I think I can follow any well-written instructions.
That said, here goes:
I'm attempting to configure my wireless after having installed RHEL 5 on my laptop. I've got ndiswrapper installed, I have the correct drivers for my device (the .inf and .sys files), and in theory I know the steps to get this done.
One problem I seem to be having, though, is that I can't blacklist the default drivers for my device, so the ndiswrapper version isn't being detected at all. Everywhere I look I'm told to just add the line
Code:
blacklist <driver>
to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, and then reboot.
After doing so, I should not be able to find my device in the network configuration menu at all - correct?
I've also created the ifcfg-wlan0 file from scratch, setting various parameters as they ought to be for my system (particularly, ESSID, MODE, KEY are set correctly).
I'm at a loss. Strangely, at one point I did have the wireless "functioning" and detecting various access points, but I could not actually connect to the internet via any of these. I have no idea what I had done to at least get that far, since any attempt to retrace my steps has turned up nothing.
For the heck of it, here is the basic outline of what I'm doing:
1. I'm starting with a fresh install of RHEL5.
2. I'm running make install in the directory containing my ndiswrapper source (version 1.52).
3. I have the right drivers, and I use ndiswrapper -i to install them. Doing ndiswrapper -l shows they are installed, and that there are alternate drivers as well which I suspect are causing some of my problems.
4. I do ndiswrapper -m, which adds a line to /etc/mdoprobe.conf: alias wlan0 ndiswrapper.
5. dmesg | grep ndiswrapper shows no love. Lines indicating ndiswrapper is being loaded, but that's it - nothing about the mac address or anything one would expect, and grepping for wlan0 turns up nothing at all.
6. iwconfig shows eth1 (the default alias of my wireless card) is sort of half-assedly set up; my OS does detect my card, and knows what make it is, but the default drivers accomplish nothing. wlan0 does not show up in the list at all.
7. iwlist scan fails utterly.
8. As mentioned, I can't blacklist, alias off, or even rmmod or modprobe -r the default drivers. lsmod | grep <driver> always shows the default drivers are loaded.
I have no idea what else there is left to try. If there is other information that may help, do let me know and I'll try to provide it.
Sorry to have let this fall to the wayside - I've got three jobs this Summer that I've had to do running around for lately!
Anyway, the outputs of the requested commands are as follows; they pretty much corroborate what I said in plain English before. What I believe to be the relevant entries in the outputs are in bold italics. I hope there's some information in here that can help someone diagnose what is going on!
Regarding lsmod, remember this is output after attempting to blacklist the bcm43xx module by editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.
lspci -v:
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 217
Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [d0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 217
Memory at c0001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [d0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 217
Memory at c0002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [d0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 11)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel
I/O ports at 8400 [size=16]
Memory at c0003000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: [b0] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 209
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at 8410 [size=16]
Capabilities: [70] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0
06:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
Memory at c0209000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
06:04.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
Memory at c0206000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
06:04.4 Class 0805: Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 Secure Digital Controller
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 177
Memory at c020a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Memory at c0209c00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Memory at c0209800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
06:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 309b
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 225
I/O ports at a000 [size=256]
Memory at c020a400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Now, I imagine there's some kind of configuration file that I need to edit so that this is done automatically, both for root and for other accounts I set up (currently I can't access modprobe or ndiswrapper under what will be my primary work login).
If that's the case, which is it and how must I edit it?
EDIT: Also, yes, the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file retains the change I made, but it clearly does not actually blacklist the right module. Is there an entry to /etc/modprobe.conf I ought to be making as well?
Last edited by anon102; 05-15-2008 at 03:35 PM.
Reason: additional note
Distribution: Slackware, Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X
Posts: 5,296
Rep:
What does lsmod look like after you modprobe -r bcm43xx and before you remove and reinsert the ndiswrapper module, then again after you reinsert the ndiswrapper module? Perhaps there are a couple of other modules that need to be blacklisted.
Good luck. ;-)
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