Fedora x64 using a Belkin card : trying ndiswrapper and getting errors: please advise
 

Description: a dual boot x64 with Xp as my main OS and Fedora 6 as the second OS.

-XP uses a PCMCIA-PCI adapter hooked up with a Belkin wireless G notebook card (F5D7010) and connects to the internet just fine

-Fedora recognizes the PCMCIA adapter and the type of card, but I still can't get an internet connection setup.

- The Ndiswrapper is not recognized for some reason : an rpm or some guidance to install ndiswrapper would be nice (It should work in the How-to guide but it still is not recognized)

-using How-to's without much success:
http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/...hterm=broadcom
(can't run yum live update because there's no internet connection although I think I installed an update to kernal 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6)



http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/ndis-yum-livna


lspci partial/important output stuff :

currently have windows XP MCE and Fedora 6 on this box.

any help would be appriciated
Thanks
-amdbcg :newbie:

You do not need ndiswrapper for your wireless card as the bcm43xx kernel module should work just fine. You do need to install the firmware into the /lib/firmware directory however. Download and install this;

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...fc6.x86_64.rpm

As root, extract the firmware from your Windows driver from the CD by running the command;

bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware <DRIVERFILE>

The DRIVERFILE should be th .inf file found on the Belkin CD or from Belkin's web site.

here's what happened : what next?
 

well, the fwcutter didn't quite work on the .inf although it looks like it did something on the .sys (I just don't quite know what) .

If you could tell me what to do next, I would appriciate it
:) here's the output:

(when giving it the .inf)
Sorry, the input file is either wrong or not supported by bcm43xx-fwcutter.
This file has an unknown MD5sum 4cc2a7f48698682c7ed10e6ce8953ec7.

Doesn't the bcm43xx driver limit networking to 10mbps? If your only wireless connection is to the internet that is fine, but it will slow down LAN networking.

If you wanted to you could visit the ndiswrapper wiki and download the recommended windows driver. You may have the ndiswrapper rpms on your FC 6 installation discs. If not search for them at the http://rpm.pbone.net site. You can filter the search to just Fedora Core 6 and download the rpms, and then use the rpm command to install them.

If you do use ndiswrapper, you may need to blacklist the bcm43xx module. I needed to do that when I upgraded my desktop to SuSE 10.2.

ok... got ndiswrapper to work with the driver, now what?
 

Ok, got some output stuff from the instructions...
thanks for the help guys... just wondering what to do next :) (cause all of this stuff is still very new to me --> I'm still a :newbie: to Fedora 6 as of 12-31-06)

I downloaded the ndiswrapper rpm here:
http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat...thlon.rpm.html
and installed it using the "rpm -ivh (location of rpm)
and got this:
so that's good ( i think)

then i used the How-to instructions found at:
http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/ndis-yum-livna

I also used 'system-config-network' and iwconfig after the instructions and this is what the output was:
I think eth2 is where the wireless card is located.

so... the system-config-network didn't seem to find the card...
if someone could let me know what to do next, i'd appriciate it :)
thanks

btw: here's the network config by default (what it recognizes : I think that's my ethernet card, not sure)
: http://amdbcg.googlepages.com/snapshot2.jpg


-:newbie:
amdbcg

If the OS is 64-bit the Windows driver needs to be the 64-bit version for both ndiswrapper and fw-cutter. You also have to load the Windows driver with ndiswrapper and blacklist the bcm43xx.

To blacklist edit (as root) the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file and add something like;

# wireless drivers
blacklist bcm43xx

Try using the 64-bit Windows driver for ndiswrapper do as root;

ndiswrapper -i filename.inf

Try the 64-bit drivers from Acer for either ndiswrapper or the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool;

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...bit/80211g.zip
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...bit/80211g.zip

.

ok... now what?
 

Ok, thanks for the info Lenard. I tried what you suggested (and downloaded those drivers), here's the output:

the following is the insert from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist - looks like it disabled the Broadcom Tigon 3 driver:
I tried the 'system-config-network' but there was no new hardware recognized (and I didn't see any other drivers in the list)

Thanks for your help :)
so... What else needs to be done to get this card working?

Please re-read the blacklist entry again, I said bcm43xx not bc43xx (big difference).

Read the ndiswrapper installation guide starting from the Load Module section;
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...on#Load_module

ok
 

sorry about that... ok, I changed the blacklist line to "bcm43xx"

ok, tried to install ndiswrapper from source(using your link): here's what I got :
Downloaded ndiswrapper source here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=474370
so... think that's it for now...

If you install ndiswrapper from source, you need to install the kernel-source. You may also have a kernel-syms package to install as well but that depends on the distro.

If you install from rpm's, make sure they are for your distro and architecture.
There is also an ndiswrapper package for the kernel module as well. Search for Fedora 6 and not Fedora Core 1.
Also, check you install disks. If you have an ndiswrapper and the kernel module package on the install disk, why not try them instead. You may need to uninstall the version ( for fedora core 1 ) that you already installed.
Also using your system's packaging system my help you find the packages.

Then after installing the windows driver (which must also be a 64 bit driver) you need to enter "ndiswrapper -m" to update /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. Also, you need to "modprobe ndiswrapper" to load in the ndiswrapper kernel module before the wireless device will operate.

I think that the bcm43xx-fwcutter program is for the bcm4xx driver. Not for the ndiswrapper driver. You seem to be mixing and matching.

ok thanks
 

thanks for the info (i was using ndiswraper for fedora core 1? )
wow, I feel really noobish right now... (and everyone helping me was wondering why ndiswrapper didn't work )

ok, a few questions :
1. how do you uninstall stuff? (rpm -ivh is install... would you use "yum remove"?)

2. is there a viable ndiswrapper here? http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64/ ?
- currently using 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6 as the kernel

3. are there any alternatives to this card? (if i did get a different pcmcia card, which one would be the most compatible?)

4. will I be able to install programs (such as cinelerra) alot easier when the internet is up and going?

thanks for your help guys (thanks jschiwal for pointing out that i'm using FC1 package! )

-:newbie:
amdbcg

This is for the kernel module.
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64...fc6.x86_64.rpm

This is for ndiswrapper itself.
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64...vn6.x86_64.rpm

I only used Fedora Core for a short time, before my old desktop bit the dust.
You can use "rpm -e" to remove packages. Read the yum manpage for an equivalent.

I'm surprised you didn't find these rpm's on your install disk, unless you updated your kernel. Sometimes it is better to use your systems package manager like yum rather than doing it manually using rpm. Doing it manually, you could lock that selection and so online updates may not show up for you. But I digress.

Make sure you have a 64 bit windows driver. A 32 bit driver will not work. It looks like you found the correct one. bcmwl564.sys rather than bcmwl5.sys .

Good Luck.

To jschiwal;

How would one find third party (livna.org) rpm packages on the FC6 installation media???

To amdbcg;

Yes the livna.org rpm packages will work. Just like any third party repo it has to be added to your yum repos configuration, some provide a rpm package which makes this easy some do not. Livna.org is one that makes this easy;

http://rpm.livna.org/rlowiki/UsingLivna

here's the output
 

:confused: not sure what happened (i think it's dependencies that are not there)
here's the output:
So, I'm guessing I need a " ndiswrapper-kmod-common" rpm (is this correct?)

Lenard : I hate to say this, but I still don't have any internet on Linux (dual booting to xp for internet) : I'm sure things will be alot easier to install once internet on Fedora is working... which means I need to install ndiswrapper... and the process continues...
OR i could try the fwcutter again...

anyways, what should I be looking for in the 'system-config-network'
to know if the process worked or not?
hmmm...
:)
Well, I want the internet for 2 reasons :
1. easily download cinelerra and all of it's dependencies (http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat...86_64.rpm.html)
- is there any way to download the full package of Cinelerra (and dependencies) without yum?
2. make Fedora a whole lot easier to use

anyways...
Thanks :)

Understood....

The rpm -e errors are a common newbie mistake, you install by the filename of the rpm package and remove by the package name, and I see you figured this out good for you.

Now to install multiple packages that depend on each other do so at the same time;

rpm -Uvh kmod-ndiswrapper*.rpm ndiswrapper*.rpm

Just make sure the required rpm packages are in the same common directory location.