Help with wireless card and Slack 10.2

I am a complete Linux/Slackware newbie. I finally managed to get Slackware 10.2 installed on my computer (dual boot with Win XP). I got KDE up and running, the sound card working, now the only things left are my wireless card and the ATI card. For now, I am mainly concerned with the wireless card.

I have already done a ton of research on the subject. I read up on the internet for 2 weeks just to get 10.2 installed, like I said, I'm a newbie. All of the information that I find states that I need to download the right module and compile it with the kernel.

1) How do I find the right module? I have an HP Pavillion zd8205 laptop with a Broadcom internal wireless card.

2) Once I get the module, how do I install it. I have my USB flash drive working, so I would need to know where to move the file to from there via terminal.

3) How do I compile the kernel once the module is added? I am using the 2.6.13 kernel if it matters.

4) Do I have to do all of this, or is there a simple command to get Slackware to search for my wireless card (and anything else I may be missing) that I don't know about?

5) I also have 128bit WEP encryption. As long as I can get the OS to use the wireless card, I can figure out the encryption stuff. I just want it to see my network.

I would appreciate any answers to the above questions, though as I am aware that this is basic stuff to all of you, I would take a link to a very good tutorial that does not assume that you helped Linus develop Linux.


Thank you in advance,


--ganooch

as root, download ndiswrapper and unpack it to /usr/local/src.
wget http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/source...er-1.23.tar.gz
cd /usr/local/src
tar xvfz /root/ndiswrapper-1.23.tar.gz

Then cd into that directory and build it.
cd ndiswrapper-1.23
./configure && make && make install

Then load the ndiswrapper module.
modprobe ndiswrapper

Then unpack the Windows divers and cd into that directory. The issue the command ndiswrapper -i <the inf name of the driver>

Originally Posted by tangle as root, download ndiswrapper and unpack it to /usr/local/src. wget cd /usr/local/src tar xvfz /root/ndiswrapper-1.23.tar.gz Then cd into that directory and build it. cd ndiswrapper-1.23 ./configure && make && make install Then load the ndiswrapper module. modprobe ndiswrapper Then unpack the Windows divers and cd into that directory. The issue the command ndiswrapper -i <the inf name of the driver>

Good right to here: ./configure && make && make install

I get the following error: -su: ./configure: No such file or directory.

Any ideas?

It has been a while since I used ndiswrapper, I thought it it had to be configured first. Try make && make install. There is a readme or install file with the source that will tell you how to install it.

The answers are all here:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m....php/Main_Page

Originally Posted by tangle It has been a while since I used ndiswrapper, I thought it it had to be configured first. Try make && make install. There is a readme or install file with the source that will tell you how to install it.

I couldn't get it to compile with the 2.6.13 kernel. I updated to 2.6.17 and ran ndiswrapper. Now it recognizes my wifi card as eth0. Now to get home and try to access my wireless access point...

It is not working! A couple of points:

1) The essid of my network is 2 words with a space. I inputted it like this:
iwconfig eth0 essid wireless\ net

2) I also ran these commands:
iwconfig eth0 key xxxxxxxx
iwconfig eth0 key on
iwconfig eth0 ap any
dhcpcd eth0

3) Afterward, for good measure, I even add:
/etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart

I am at a loss. What am I missing? I compiled all of the above commands into a script with the exception of /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart. That I run after the script after I realize that I can't connect.

What do I need to configure under ifconfig? All ifconfig (no parameters) lists is lo. I even shut this down with:
ifconfig lo down

I am open to any suggestions and thanks for the help.

--ganooch

Have you tried using /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart? I Live in the middle of no where so I have only one essid to worry about and it's mine. This just connects to the first essid that shows up.

Try puting the two word essid name in quotes, "wireless net". I am not sure if that will work just something off the top of my early morning head.

I am still stuck! I would really like to get this working...
When I run /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart I get the following errors:
**** /sbin/dhcpcd not running
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: eth0 is 'Any ESSID'

I have the driver and hardware recognized. I have a script that sets the essid and the WEP key. iwconfig shows the card as eth0. ifconfig only shows lo. I do a ifconfig etho up and I get "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory". I do a ifconfig -a and I see that eth0 is there. It states:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:23:BD:6B
BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX Packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 {0.0 b} TX bytes:0 {0.0 b}
Interrupt:5

iwconfig eth0 states:

eth0 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"wireless" Nickname:"chris"
Mode:Managed Access Point:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF Bit Rate=1 Mb/s
RTS thrff Frament thrff
Encryption key:omitted Security modepen
Link Quality:0 Signal Level:0 Noise Level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

The wireless network is up, the encrytion key is valid, there are no MAC address filters on the router, the essid is right. I am thinking that I will need to get eth0 to show up under ifconfig somehow, but ifconfig eth0 up triggers the error shown above. If anyone has ANY ideas, I would appreciate it.

UPDATE and subsequent plea for help

I am pretty new to Linux and I am having trouble getting wireless to work. Here is my situation. I have Slackware 10.2 and kernel 2.6.17. I have loaded and run ndiswrapper. I have an HP zd8000 laptop with a Broadcom internal wireless card. After compiling and running ndiswrapper, I enter: ndiswrapper -l and get back bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present. iwconfig shows that eth0 is my wireless card. I created a script called wireless in vi and after I run it I enter iwconfig again and eth0 is shown with all of the proper information such as ESSID, Encryption Key, Security Mode, ect. Here is where I am stuck:

When I enter ifconfig, all I see is lo and the local loopback's properties. I enter ifconfig -a and it shows eth0, eth1, lo, and sit0 all with more information. As I know the MAC adress of the wireless card, it is easy to confirm that, in fact, eth0 is my wireless card. So I assume that the next course of action would be the command ifconfig eth0 up. I enter this command and get the following result: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory. Now there has got to be something that I am missing here.

What is the proper command to get eth0 active in ifconfig? Also, what other steps have I missed or do I need to take to get connected on my wireless network. I am relying on the wealth of knowledge of the people in this forum, because I have been to several other forums and read endless documentation both online and in the source code to no avail. I have been at this for 1 month now (I should say 3 weeks because I have gotten frustrated and gave up for a week). Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated.



Thank you in advance,

ganooch

I think Eric Hameleer's Slackware Wiki will have all the answers you need.

First, in a terminal, issue "/sbin/lspci" to find out which chipset your card uses. That will allow you to choose the help for your driver under the Wireless category in Eric's Wiki. (You might not have to use ndiswrapper, and the latest stable kernel has more Broadcom support.)

Since you're using Slackware-10.2, I'd suggest you update your rc.inet1* and rc.wireless* files according to Eric's instructions.

If you're still stuck after following this advice, post back what you did, and what happened, and we'll go from there. Wireless in Slackware works very well once you're properly configured.

I followed the advice from the above links and I am in the same place that I started. I think that the one issue that needs to be addresses is that my wireless card is identified as eth0. In all of the documentation that I have read, it is stated that this interface should be wlan0. When I do a modprobe ndiswrapper -m, the alias of wlan0 is assigned, but in iwconfig and ifconfig, the card still shows up as eth0.

Any advice from this point is greatly appreciated.


--ganooch

Another Update:

I have changed some parameters in /etc/rc/rc.inet1.config and now my wireless card comes up as wlan0! A iwlist wlan0 scan shows my wireless network, but I can not connect. I am so close here! What do I need to do to get an IP address from my wireless router? I configured the gateway IP in the rc.inet1.config file. Please, I am open to any and all suggestions.

Thanks,

Ganooch

i am having similar problems with my slackware. it works sometimes and other times it doesn't and i fiddle with it for a while and get it to work, and i never remember what i did to make it work. i load the drivers and i get the hardware detected and present(can't remember exact) from my linksys drivers. then i do depmod -a and then modprobe ndiswrapper.
then i type iwlist wlan0 scan and it tells me no such device. so i think maybe set the essid. i try iwconfig wlan0 essid linksys and it tells me that device isn't available. what am i doing wrong?

thanks

Lets face it - Slackware is worthless for wireless. Thank goodness there are other distributions that are wireless-friendly - mainly anything with Gnome so you can install NetworkManager and have the whole process automated.

If only KDE would get a clue...