Belkin "Pre-n" F5D8000 network card

I was able to get my F5D8000 Pre-N card to work successfully on my SUSE 10.0 machine, but some unfortunate events led me to wipe the hard drive clean and start over. I installed the exact same packages, and went through the exact same procedure as the last successful install, but now I get this error while installing the WPNT511 driver:

Installing netani couldn't copy /driver/NETANI.INF at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 144.

any clue whyh this doesn't want to work anymore?

I'm using ndiswrapper1.14 (same as last time) and nothing has changed in my hardware configuration.
I also had a quick question about the WPNT511 driver... there's 2 versions to download 1) Dec 2, 2005 and 2) Dec 21, 2005, which is different from the Jun 30, 2005 version mentioned above. could this be the problem? much obliged...

Sounds like a privilege problem with a file or directory. Are you sure that your doing the install with root?
Also, it may mean that your source directory specification is incorrect.

"driver" hangs directory off of the root directory?

ok, turns out another fresh install solved my problem... if anyone else has problems, check out this link: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6139/3/

now I have more of an annoyance than a problem... for some reason SUSE detects 2 network cards:
1) Wireless Network Card [fully functional] and 2) Airgo Networks Ethernet controler [not configured]
the 2nd device used to be my default, but now the 1st one is. I really shouldn't complain because my wireless card works flawlessly, but like I said, it's more of an annoyance than a problem.

Hallo LinuxWannaBe,

I am trying to get my F5D8000 wireless card working under Linux for weeks...now I read that u managed your card to work...

I used the Netgear Driver mentioned in the ndiswrapper wiki and several versions of Ndiswrapper 1.10 - 1.15...

till "modprobe ndiswrapper" I have no problem, but after typing dmesg I get the following message:

ndiswrapper: module not supported by Novell, setting U taint flag.
ndiswrapper version 1.10 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver netani (Airgo Networks, Inc.,06/30/2005, 1.5.0.147) loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:00.0[A] -> Link [APC1] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 177
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:229): log: C0001391, count: 3, return_address: e14fbecb
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:232): code: 1768186984
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:232): code: 1953066601
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:232): code: 994
ndiswrapper (miniport_init:227): couldn't initialize device: C000009A
ndiswrapper (pnp_start_device:533): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device (C0000001)
ndiswrapper: probe of 0000:03:00.0 failed with error -22


Can You write me how You made Your Belkin Card work please? I read that the problem was the PCI Adapter of Ricoh and not so much the Networkcard itself.

It would be great if You could help me.

I'm a NEWBIE myself, so I know I'm going to be skipping some pretty important stuff, but here's basically what I did to get my card to work (along with some help from the site I referrenced in my previous post).

First, you're going to need 2 files:

1) ndiswrapper 1.15 (or 1.16 )
2) Netgear WPNT511 driver

login as root, and extract the files to the root folder, so you should have two folders:

1) /root/ndiswrapper-1.15/
2) /root/wpnt511_v1104/

Next, from the root directory, cd to ndiswrapper-1.15

root> cd ndiswrapper-1.5
root> make distclean
root> make
root> make install

After running the make command, you're going to need to install the Netgear WPNT511 driver for the Belkin F5D8000. first, cd to the location of the drivers, which should be /root/wpnt511_v1104/Utility/Driver (if you followed the above directions)

root> cd ..
root> cd /wpnt511_v1104/Utility/Driver
root> ndiswrapper -i NETANI.INF
root> ndiswrapper -l

The 'ndiswrapper -l' command should give you this message:

Installed ndis drivers:
netani driver present, hardware present

Now type the following commands:

root> depmod -a
root> modprobe ndiswrapper

If you get no errors, then type this command:

root> ifconfig

If you don't see wlan0 as one of your network adapters, then type this command:

root> ifconfig wlan0 up
root> iwconfig

At this point, your Belkin card should be able to scan for available networks in the area. Type this command to search for networks:

root> iwlist wlan0 scan

If you see networks, then your card is functioning. It's best to configure it Manually using YaST if you get this far. This should get you up and running, but you may need to make some changes in order for the drivers to be loaded during boot.

I am running opensuse 10.1 with 2.6.16 kernel, and latest (at time of writing) ndiswrapper v 1.21. The win32 driver for my card (F5D8010) is the netgear's one mentioned on the wiki.

I didn't notice in your thread the version of ndiswrapper installed on your system.

If your using what came with the distro that's too old. Un-install the ndiswrapper and build/install the latest source.

I found that the card worked better under Suse 10 rather than 10.1.

I never fully automated the configuration so that it was operational following a reboot. I always had to manually load the drivers and make the connection.

good luck

Got this when I tried to compile ndiswrapper:

Emachine1:~/ndiswrapper-1.16 # make
make -C driver
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/ndiswrapper-1.16/driver'
Can't find kernel build files in /lib/modules/2.6.16.13-4-default/build;
  give the path to kernel build directory with
  KBUILD=<path> argument to make
make[1]: *** [prereq_check] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/ndiswrapper-1.16/driver'
make: *** [all] Error 2
Emachine1:~/ndiswrapper-1.16 #

WTF???

I'm running SUSE 10.1. Yes, "make distclean" had been done w/ no error messages before this.

It would be nice to know if anyone is even reading this...

What are kernel build files and do I need to download them? Ubern00b here, I know. I just want to get my card working, though.

archer007,
I would try using a newer ndiswrapper if you have a 2.6 kernel. I got the ndiswrapper-1.15 working on my 2.4 kernel but not on the 2.6. I am now using ndiswrapper-1.46

For the most part I followed LinuxWannaBE916's instructions and got it working with editing the following files...

/etc/rc.d/rc.wiress.conf

case "$HWADDR" in

*)
   INFO="My Network"
   ESSID="NETWORK"
   KEY="1234567890987654321234567890"
   ;;

esac

/etc/rc.d/rc.inetd1.conf

IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
IPADDR[4]="192.168.1.80"
NETMASK[4]="255.255.255.0"

$ /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart

and it all worked using the Netgear WPN511 drivers and ndiswrapper-1.46.tar.gz.

The problem I was having is that after transfering a large file or large number of smaller files I would loose my connection to the router. When doing a ping I would get

ping: sendmsg: no buffer space available

I think I solved the problem by using the drivers downloaded from the Belkin website instead of using the Netgear drivers. The Belkin download F5D8010v1.2.0.80a.exe had a date of 02-02-2005 and the NetAni.inf and WNIhdd51.sys inside the file (rename it to F5D8010v1.2.0.80a.zip and open with Konqueror) had a date of 10-06-2004.

FYI

I am running Slackware 11 with an upgraded kernel of 2.6.18.
Also the network card has a great range and I get transfer speeds of around 2-4MBps (2 to 4 Megabytes per second) with the Belkin Pre-N F5D8230-4 router.

The metal part of the card does get hot to the point where it is hard to touch. Nothing that drilling holes through the plastic on the laptop won't fix.

Thanks, I'll try that. I posted this waay back when I was a Linux ubernoob, so I can probably get it to work now.

I apologise for resurrecting a long dead Thread - but I too am having problems getting the Belkin F5D8000 to work, though this time in Ubuntu 8.04.

I initially followed this guide:

However, upon reaching step 7 (activating the driver), the machine hangs when executing the line "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper".
Nothing is written to /var/log/messages before the system hangs, and a manual reboot is required to proceed.

Using the netgear driver in-place of the belkin driver makes no difference.

The same problem also occurs if I attempt to use the gui to perform the installation (via System->Administration->Windows Wireless Drivers) - though in this case it freezes as soon as the 'Install' button is pressed after browsing to the driver .inf file. (presumably is is performing steps 4,5,6 & 7 as a single action.)

This is all using the latest version of ndiswrapper, 1.53.
If relevant, the pc i'm trying to get it working in is one of these:-

Any help would be greatly appreciated on this, as I'm a Linux noobie and am tbh, quite stumped =/