In an effort to broaden my Slackware knowledge, my latest project is to get my Linksys Wireless G adapter to work in Slackware. It uses the bcmwl5.sys driver in WinXP.

I followed the guide linked here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=328

I installed ndiswrapper, using the broadcom driver and inf file from XP and ndiswrapper -l says:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

So far, so good, but modprobe ndiswrapper gives an error:

Error inserting ndiswrapper. (/lib/modules/2.6.11.11/misc/ndiswrapper,ko), Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

I checked and found that it installed the module /lib/modules/2.6.11.11/misc/ndiswrapper.ko

I followed the other steps listed such as ndiswrapper -m which added the entry to modprobe.conf (for the 2.6 kernel). Added the specified entries to rc.local and modified rc.wireless.conf and made sure rc.local and rc.wireless start on boot.

Any idea on what I need to do to remove the modprobe error, since I do not think the ndiswrapper module is loading? Or do I have to buy the linuxant driver to use instead of ndiswrapper?

Thanks,
Gary

So what does dmesg say?

Try removing the windows driver from ndiswrapper and using bcmwl5a.inf instead. I've had better luck with it. My Motorola card has the broadcom chip set and the "5a" works quite well.

Namaseit,

No message at all in dmesg, I can see where the onboard Broadcom ethernet controller loads, but no reference at all for the PCI adapter even though it shows up in lspci hardware list as Network Controller Broadcom Corporation BCM94306 802.11g (rev 03)

Masonm,
So you think I need to uninstall ndiswrapper, and repeat the install, using bcmwl5a.inf with the same .sys driver instead? Would a simple google search find it?

And a question for everyone. What controls automatically loading the ndiswrapper,ko module? Is it rc.local or rc.wireless as opposed rc.modules??

Thanks,
Gary

No, you don't need to remove ndiswrapper, just the driver you installed.
You can do that with a simple command:
ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

both bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5a.inf install the same .sys windows driver, just with different information. Give it a try. If you have the CD for the card, they'll be on there, other wise you may find bcmwl5a.inf in your windows files, or you can download it. The .sys file will be the same for either.

Namaseit,

Just re-ran dmesg after trying another modprobe ndiswrapper and it says ndiswrapper: Unknown symbol wireless_send_event

Any ideas? I checked the .conf files in /etc/ndiswrapper for that parameter and couldn't find it.

And masonm,

don't have the bcmwl5a.inf just the "5.inf. Couldn't turn up any download for it either on the web, just numerous references of using it.

Gary

That means that the kernel doesn't know what the module is trying to do. The kernel is saying 'Unknown symbol wireless_send_event' which means that you probably left wireless network support out of the kernel when you configured it.

--Shade

Shade,

You're right! Just checked the .config file and Wireless Extensions were not checked.

Recompiling as we speak.

Thanks,
Gary

Shade,

Just recompiled wireless support in the kernel. Rebooted on new kernel and presto, wlan0 appears with lsmod showing ndiswrapper module loaded.

Now I need to play around with the code in /etc/wireless.conf for my setup. Once I have it working with the router encryption turned off, I'm going to install the wpa supplicant package and try to enable WPA-PSK encryption. Thanks for putting me on the right track. Just never expanded the networking section of the config file that much.

Will let you know how the tweaking goes. I guess I need to disconnect the ethernet card connection to truly know when I have a good wireless connection!

Gary

Just rebooted with the ethernet cable disconnected and found I have a wireless connection (unencrypted) so everything is working!!

I notice that dmesg says that the wireless adapter supports WEP, wpa with tkip or aes so I wonder if I really need that wpa_supplicant update?

I think I'll fiddle around with the settings for wireless.conf, then turn on the router encryption and see what happens. No sense in installing software if it's not needed.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Gary

Cool. Just remember, if you set up the router with an ascii key, you'll need to preface your key with s: in the config file to identify it as a string instead of hex.

key s:xxxxxxxxxxxxx