Fresh Fedora 7 install - Please walk me thru wireless 1390 configuration
 

I have a brand new Dell Inspiron 1501 running a fresh install of Fedora 7. Everything is configured and working, except for my wireless, which is the seemingly infamous 1390 card. I've read many forums, and there appear to be many ways to get this working, but I want to do it as cleanly as possibly. Please point me in the right direction. I understand that ndiswrapper is one route, but it feels like too much of a hack for me to be comfortable with. Maybe it really is the best way to go? In any case, it would be really helpful to me and others in my shoes if we could get a thorough walkthrough, starting from the point of a fresh install.

All help is thoroughly appreciated!

Using ndiswrapper is not that hard, all you need are a few rpm packages.

Step one:

rpm -ivh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrp....fc.noarch.rpm

Step two:

yum install dkms dkms-ndiswrapper

Step three:

modprobe ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper -i <the windows inf file>


Step four:
Create a new file in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory called ifcfg-wlan0 which looks something like:

TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
HWADDR=
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
IPADDR=
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=
DOMAIN=
ONBOOT=yes
ONHOTPLUG=yes
USERCTL=yes
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
ESSID=
CHANNEL=
MODE=
RATE=


Step five: service network restart

Thank you, this is where I am at:

/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx-mac80211)

/sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
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

sit0 no wireless extensions.

/sbin/service network restart
Shutting down interface eth0: [ OK ]
Shutting down loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0:
Determining IP information for eth0... done.
[ OK ]
Bringing up interface wlan0: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Determining IP information for wlan0...SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
failed.
[FAILED]

What does the output from the typed command 'iwlist wlan0 scan' show??? Your wireless access point???

What does the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 file look like??

Is the wired interface (eth0) connected to the same network? If yes then you might to shutdown this interface, as root type: ifdown eth0

You might want to also edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file so the wired interface does not start on boot, change the line entry to be: ONBOOT=no


Both the bcm43xx-mac80211 and ndiswrapper drivers cannot be loaded at the same time, one needs to be removed or blacklisted. Check:
cat /proc/modules | grep ndis
cat /proc/modules | grep bcm43

If both are loaded then remove the bcm43xx-mac80211 module: modprobe -r bcm43xx-mac80211
and blacklist the module be editing the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file adding to the end of the file;

# wireless
blacklist bcm43xx-mac80211

Do you have a file named something like ifcfg-wmaster0 in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory? If yes then also check your /etc/modprobe.conf file for a line entry with wmaster0 as part of the line, if it exists then add a comment(#) to the beginning of the line.

Example: # alias wmaster0 bcm43x-mac80211

Hi, I was in the exact same place as RonOot with, after following the last set of directions, I get the following:

/sbin/service network restart
Shutting down interface eth0: [ OK ]
Shutting down loopback interface: [ OK ]
SIOCGIFFLAGS: No such device
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0:
Determining IP information for eth0... done.
[ OK ]
Bringing up interface wlan0: Device wlan0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.
[FAILED]

Then as a suggestion remove ndiswrapper and use the built-in bcm43xx-mac80211 module. Be sure to edit the files(/etc/modprobe.conf, ifcfg-wlan0 and so forth) as needed. Also you will need the firmware files for the wireless interface in the /lib/firmware directory. Use the suggested drivers (with instructions) from:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg01009.html

Hopefully at this point you can get wlan0 to associate with the access point by a series of calls "iwconfig wlan0 ..." to give information about the network you're trying to join. What's the SSID? What's the WEP encryption key (if any)? What's the mode? Channel? Keep checking "iwconfig wlan0" to see whether you're making progress.

Problems with BCM43 on Fedora 7
 

I followed the directions as previously indicated above.

My problem upon activating Wireless is:
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present. Check cable?

Here is my settings:

NDISWRAPPER;
[root@jamnz ~]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4320) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx-mac80211)
[root@jamnz ~]#

Cannot Set ESSID via Terminal
 

While trying to make my wireless card work in terminal mode,
I encounter this problem.

I cannot manually assign ESSD.

I use the following command:
iwconfig wlan0 essid jamnz

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any Nickname:"n"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:56EA-2AB6-B2CB-6938-10EA-F688-68 Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
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 ssid may not be accepted until you've gotten it to associate with the access point. Try "ifconfig wlan0 up" before issuing iwconfig commands. And check that the security mode is right -- try "iwconfig wlan0 key open".