FC5 WIFI with unsupported device (LinkSys WPC11 V4 - PCMCIA)

This has worked for me 100% so I'd like to share it. Apologize if it's already out there of this is the wrong place to post it - I'm new here!

FC5 Wireless with unsupported devices (specifically the LinkSys WPC11 V4 - PCMCIA)
First of all forget about everything else, ndiswrapper is your best option at the moment!

If you run ‘lspci’ you will see that linux sees the card as a rtl8180L (realtek chipset) and that is the driver which needs to be installed using ndiswrapper. But first things first…


Getting and installing ndiswrapper
*From now on I assume the user is root or has root privileges.

Unfortunately, we will need a network connection in order to use yum.

Once internet connection is up (somehow) run ‘yum install kernel-devel-$(uname –r)’. That will install kernel include files, which is pretty much what ndiswrapper needs from the kernel.

Then download ndiswrapper tarball unpack and run “make uninstall && make && make install”

If no errors voila!

/sbin/ndiswrapper should now be available.

The driver
Ok now the tricky part. Get the windows XP drivers, from manufacturer website or elsewhere. Remember that what you really want is the chipset not the vendor’s brand name driver, in our case the rtl8180L.

Tip: normally the .exe can be unpacked with ‘unzip drivername.exe’

We want to run ndiswrapper –i LNDSXXX.INF (use the .INF file) that will use the driver rtl8180.sys. Typing ndiswrapper –l should tell you whether the hardware is present and functional.

Now run ‘depmod && modprobe ndiswrapper’ and your wlan0 interface should come up.

You may want to configure the wireless interface now to see if it works. In order to do that, use the iwconfig tool. However, it’s probably easier to deal with ifcfg-wlan0 file directly (next section).

Load everything up at boot
First you must make sure ndiswrapper module is loaded before linux tries to bring wlan0 up. You do that by typing ‘ndiswrapper –m’ which will create the proper alias for wlan0 interface.

Finally, create a file called /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 with the following entries:
(this is an example)

DEVICE=wlan0
IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
TYPE=Wireless
IPADDR=x.x.x.x
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=y.y.y.y
MODE=Managed
ESSID="NAME"
CHANNEL=6
HWADDR=HH:HH:HH:HH:HH:HH
KEY="ec56abb90003b7f7ff8dd7f4"
WPA=no
USERCTL=no

Reboot and the wireless should be functional.

When I do
yum install kernel-devel-$(uname –r)

I get:
Bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('

What happened?


I am running FC 5

make sure your running bash (type 'bash' and run the yum command again).

Update:
* livna has ndiswrapper as a package so all you have to do is:

rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm
yum install ndiswrapper

However, I'd still make sure the ndiswrapper is compiled against whatever you have using the procedure in the OP.

ive been struggling with the wpc11 v4 all day and still so far no joy.
this thread is very promising, but I need more info on where to get the driver.

the xp driver from realtek doesn't have a lndsxxx.inf file. i saw something like this in the driver from linksys but ndiswrapper wouldnt take it.

info on where you got your driver from would be much appreciated.

thanks

Liam

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