ndiswrapper fails to load with modprobe

Hi All,

I wasn't sure whether to post this as an ndiswrapper question under Ubuntu, or as an Ubuntu question under Wireless. I think here is probably the better place...

I've been running a Belkin 7F5D7050 usb card with great success under Suse10 using a Ralink driver with ndiswrapper, so I know this works.

I installed Kubuntu last night and it seemed to go well. Wired networking is up, updates all done, everything's good. Checked the repositories for ndiswrapper and installed ndiswrapper-utils, everything's still good. From what else I could find, support for ndiswrapper is already compiled into the kernel (is that correct?).

"sudo ndiswrapper -i /path/rt2500usb.inf" and the driver loads. Plug in the usb adapter and "ndiswrapper -l" shows driver present, hardware present. "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" and nothing happens. The cursor moves down a line and just sits there, blinking.

Open another terminal and "lsmod | grep ndiswrapper" says ndiswrapper is loaded, but nothing to do with ndiswrapper works. Even "ndiswrapper -l" just hangs now. Reboot, try to be smart and add ndiswrapper to /etc/modules. HaHa, system hangs at boot-up... no surprises there Try recovery mode, get lots of ugly messages about ndiswrapper, then system hangs at boot-up.

Don't worry about the hang at boot-up, that I can fix. But can anyone offer suggestions, advice or work-arounds for ndiswrapper not loading successfully. If nothing is forthcoming, my next plan is to build ndiswrapper from source. I already have the 1.6 tar.gz from Suse, but I was hoping to avoid that until I was a little further up the Kubuntu learning curve.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
Timothy.

Well, I guess people aren't flocking to read this. It turned out to be something of a success in the end, but a rocky road getting there...

I commented out ndiswrapper from "/etc/modules" and fixed the boot hang-up, then reloaded ndiswrapper-utils. Still no go. Command line hangs with a blinking cursor.

I downloaded the kernel-source that I thought I'd need to build ndiswrapper1.6, but all I kept getting was "kernel-source not found". Then I discovered "module-assistant". This fixed me up in no time -- MAGIC! Built ndiswrapper from 1.6 source... "make" and "make install" both went perfectly (after I remembered to sudo "make install").

Typed "ndiswrapper -i /path/driver.inf" and received "file not found"...wtf?!? Did a little crashing around in the dark, and discovered that ndiswrapper is a perl script. (I guess perl must be broken on my setup... any thoughts on that?) Typing "perl ndiswrapper -i /path/driver.inf" seemed to address the problem: driver present, hardware present. Almost there!

"modprobe ndiswrapper" and YES! It's a go, no hung command line. "lsmod | grep ndis" returns ndiswrapper installed.

The signal strength is max'ed out at 100 and wlan0 is associating with the router, but I couldn't get an IP address using dhcp. A static IP got me as far as the router, but no Internet. The SSID on my router was hidden, so I disabled the hidden option, set wlan0 back to dhcp and presto... up and running!

Wireless and loving it. A good day

Timothy.

Weird. There is a Ubuntu howto related to ndiswrapper: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...dex.php/Ubuntu

You can do everything from packages available in Ubuntu. I got mine working by installing the kernel headers:

apt-get install kernel-header-$(uname -r)

and ndiswrapper source:

apt-get install ndiswrapper-source

Then unpack the source and compile the module:

cd /usr/src
tar -jxf ndiswrapper-source.tar.bz2
cd modules/ndiswrapper
make install
ndiswrapper -i YOURWIFI.INF

I also edited /etc/network/interfaces for the wlan0 and put ndiswrapper in /etc/modules to load at boot up.

Hey m_yates,

Thanks for the feedback. As a long time "off again/on again" Suse user and still something of a newb, I'm having to find my way around Kubuntu with a little less of the GUI "hand-holding". In YAST, installing the kernel-source configures everything you need, including the headers. And I learn so much more about the inner workings of Linux every time something breaks

I already edited /etc/modules, but I was not aware of /etc/network/interfaces. When I'm a little more comfortable here, I'll do a clean install and see if I can get it "right first time". And in spite of the "newness" factor, I like Kubuntu. I think I'll stick here for a while...

Well, I lost my wireless again. And now I can't seem to run "ndiswrapper" whatever I do.

Something in this system is seriously broken, and I'm maybe not so impressed with Kubuntu anymore.

I'll do a clean install later and see how that works. But right now, I have to grocery shopping...

I don't know what would have broken it. Do you see any error messages when you run "ndiswrapper"?

If you re-install, I can give you some suggestions. I recently switched to kubuntu/ubuntu after using Debian for the past three years. I have found the Ubuntu has just about everything Debian does. The advantage is that is it is not so much of a moving target as Debian testing/unstable, so things don't break as often. When you install:

1. Make sure /home is on its own partition so that you can reinstall later without losing data stored on /home.

2. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to uncomment all ubuntu sources. (I use everything except "backports"). Also add a line for "multiverse" sources. You will see a line for universe. Just copy and paste that line and change "universe" to "multiverse" so that you have both universe and multiverse sources.

3. Run "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade". You now have access to just about everything you need except multimedia libraries of questionable legality. If you are looking for something, try the "apt-cache search" command. For example:

apt-cache search ndiswrapper

will show you packages available related to ndiswrapper.

4. I try to avoid as much as possible installing packages outside of apt. It makes it easy to maintain/upgrade. The only thing missing really is libdvdcss2 (for playing encrypted DVD's) and w32codecs (for playing windows media files, quicktime files, and other multimedia stuff). If you really want those, they can be downloaded from Marillat's sources from Debian testing.

Thanks again for the follow-up...

I believe my problem with ndiswrapper is here:
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/keart/ndiswrapper-1.6/utils'
gcc -g -Wall -DUTILS_VERSION=\"1.6\" -o loadndisdriver loadndisdriver.c
make[1]: gcc: Command not found
make[1]: *** [loadndisdriver] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/keart/ndiswrapper-1.6/utils'
make: *** [all] Error 2

I'm guessing that because loadndiswrapper isn't getting built, everything else is fubar. The above was done with gcc3.4. I tried building with 4.0 and received the same error.

I already figured out most of the package management, although I've been doing it through Synaptic (not averse to CL, just less challenging through the GUI). I had already found a post about universe and multiverse, I have those enabled. I was aware of Marillat from an earlier (brief) foray into Debian.

Another problem was kaffeine... video but no sound. Switching from gstreamer to xine fixed that. But without wireless on my laptop, it's a little like no wheels on my car... great if I don't plan on going anywhere.

Late addition:
I downloaded ndiswrapper1.7 and tried one last time. Now I get this (I haven't posted it all, it goes on for about three pages):
make -C utils
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/keart/ndiswrapper-1.7/utils'
gcc -g -Wall -DUTILS_VERSION=\"1.7\" -o loadndisdriver loadndisdriver.c
loadndisdriver.c:15:20: error: stdlib.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:16:19: error: stdio.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:17:19: error: errno.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:18:20: error: string.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:19:20: error: libgen.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:21:22: error: sys/mman.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:23:23: error: sys/types.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:24:23: error: sys/ioctl.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:25:22: error: sys/stat.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:26:20: error: unistd.h: No such file or directory
loadndisdriver.c:27:19: error: fcntl.h: No such file or directory
In file included from /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.0.2/include/syslimits.h:7,
from /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.0.2/include/limits.h:11,
from loadndisdriver.c:28:
/usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.0.2/include/limits.h:122:61: error: limits.h: No such file or directory
..........blah, blah, blah..........
make[1]: *** [loadndisdriver] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/keart/ndiswrapper-1.7/utils'
make: *** [all] Error 2


Walks away, shaking head