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Old 01-17-2008, 09:02 AM   #1
CrownAmbassador
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Using Internal Wi-Fi Card


Hi,

I have not been using Linux in a while as I came back to South Africa and the internet lines here can be very limited, so please bare with me.

I installed a external Belkin Wi-Fi Card a few years ago on a Debian system, but now I want to install my Dell Inspiron 5150's internal card. I want to get it working so I can hook it up with my Vista machine for internet sharing purposes. So I need help.

Am I right in saying that I need to install RT2500? I'm trying to do that, but I'm getting a "Error 1" when running make.

What is the command to get a report on attached hardware?

Thank you,
LonelyTraveler
 
Old 01-17-2008, 02:18 PM   #2
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The command that reports on installed pci devices is lspci. I too have a Dell Inspiron 5150 and I use ndiswrapper along with the Windows XP driver for that card.

As far as the make error... Do you have make installed? In most distros you have an option to install development tools. You should do so, that way you get all the devel tools and libraries needed to compile and install software.
 
Old 01-17-2008, 04:11 PM   #3
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I have make installed yes. Where did you get the Windows driver? I tried to pop in the Dell Driver CD, but couldn't get anything off it.

I found a linkthat has the Windoze driver on it, but it says its for the HP. Will it work on a Dell also? It should right? As its the same card.

I'm trying to install ndiswrapper now, but I'm getting a Error 2 when running make install. I managed to install ndiswrapper-utils from Synaptic, but thats not all I need right?

According to this page, Ubuntu comes with the necessary ndiswrapper module pre-installed, but it needs the ndiswrapper-utils package to get it working, which is what I did. Do I need anything else?

Might be worth saying that I'm running Ubuntu 5.04. I'm waiting for the upgraded CD to come in the mail.

Last edited by CrownAmbassador; 01-18-2008 at 09:22 AM. Reason: Added detail
 
Old 01-18-2008, 02:37 PM   #4
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LonelyTravelor,

I usually compile ndiswrapper myself so I'm not sure what to expect with prebuilt packages on Ubuntu. If the ndiswrapper and ndiswrapper-utils packages are all you need, then try loading the windows driver by doing "ndiswrapper -i <path to .inf file>"

And to answer your earlier question, yes the driver should work on the same chipset regardless on what brand name is on the outside of your pc case. Anyways try that ndiswrapper command I suggested and afterwards do "ndiswrapper -l" to see if ndiswrapper sees and recognizes your device.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 08:55 AM   #5
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The Windoze driver that this website points me to is an .exe file. I can't find a .inf file. I tried running the ndiswrapper command with the .exe file but it tells me the ndiswrapper command is not found. So I guess I do need that ndiswrapper installation, but when trying to make I get a error 2 message.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 09:00 AM   #6
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You'll need to extract the contents with anything that will handle a zip file, the *.inf file is inside the *.exe.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 09:11 AM   #7
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Thanks Elliot, but it doesn't want to work. I tried unzip ~.exe but it tells me it can't zipfile directory.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 09:25 AM   #8
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I just downloaded the R83097.exe driver listed 5150 card and unzipped it myself, worked fine.
Code:
[elliott@acer2-arch 5150]$ unzip R83097.EXE 
Archive:  R83097.EXE
  inflating: bcmwlhoa.ini            
  inflating: bcmwlhom.exe            
  inflating: bcmwlhom.ini            
  inflating: bcmwlntp.sys            
  inflating: bcmwltry.exe            
  inflating: bcmwlu00.exe            
  inflating: data1.cab               
  inflating: data1.hdr               
  inflating: data2.cab               
  inflating: DellInfo.exe            
  inflating: dellinst.exe            
  inflating: ikernel.ex_             
  inflating: layout.bin              
  inflating: Readme.txt              
  inflating: Setup.exe               
  inflating: Setup.ini               
  inflating: setup.inx               
  inflating: setup.iss               
  inflating: wltrysvc.exe            
  inflating: AR/bcm43xx.cat          
 extracting: AR/bcm43xxa.cat         
  inflating: AR/bcmwl5.inf           
  inflating: AR/bcmwl5.sys           
  inflating: AR/bcmwl5a.inf          
  inflating: IR/bcm43xx.cat          
 extracting: IR/bcm43xxa.cat         
  inflating: IR/bcmwl5.inf           
  inflating: IR/bcmwl5.sys           
  inflating: IR/bcmwl5a.inf          
  inflating: AegisE2.dll             
  inflating: AegisE5.dll             
  inflating: AegisI2.exe             
  inflating: AegisI5.exe             
  inflating: BCMLogon.dll            
  inflating: bcmwlcpl.cpl            
  inflating: bcmwld2k.exe            
  inflating: bcmwlhlp.chm
 
Old 01-19-2008, 09:31 AM   #9
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Strange. I'm gonna download cabextract and see if that works.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 11:00 AM   #10
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Fantastic! I got it unzipped with cabextract and got the wifi card installed too. But now, I can't see my network. I make a network from my Vista PC called Vista and when I search on Ubuntu with iwlist scan, it tells me no scan results. Any idea why that is? The other XP computer in the house can see it.
 
Old 01-19-2008, 04:46 PM   #11
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Any ideas anyone? I'm so fed up now! Been trying for hours!
 
Old 01-23-2008, 03:29 PM   #12
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try running:

watch 'iwlist wlan0 scanning'


This will rerun the command every 2 seconds. The problems is that iwlist watches for transmitted beacons to detect wifi networks. You might just be missing the beacons due to timing differences between windows linux. I honestly don't know enough about Vista to be able to troubleshoot it.
 
Old 01-24-2008, 10:21 AM   #13
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Nope. No joy. There is a XP connection running in the house too, but can's see it from Linux.

Just some details. Don't know if this will help:
Code:
crowndude@Ubuntu:~/WiFi Driver$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0D:56:E9:06:D9
          inet addr:192.168.0.2  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20d:56ff:fee9:6d9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4738 errors:1 dropped:1 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:723 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1712257 (1.6 MiB)  TX bytes:120614 (117.7 KiB)
          Interrupt:17

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:11837 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11837 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1074410 (1.0 MiB)  TX bytes:1074410 (1.0 MiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:4B:62:DE:30
          inet addr:192.168.0.2  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::290:4bff:fe62:de30/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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:18 Memory:faffc000-faffdfff

crowndude@Ubuntu:~/WiFi Driver$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:25 dBm
          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-10 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Last edited by CrownAmbassador; 01-24-2008 at 10:36 AM. Reason: Added info
 
Old 01-24-2008, 12:32 PM   #14
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Try running "dhclient wlan0"

if that doesn't work trying manually setting the config for your wireless card. For example do

iwconfig wlan0 essid "your network name"
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
iwconfig wlan0 channel 6 (or change to whatever channel your access point is transmitting on)

For more options just do "man iwconfig" and play with some of the setting and see what happens. Write down whatever setting you change and post them here so we can continue to help you diagnose this.
 
Old 01-24-2008, 12:49 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PhenuxRizing View Post
iwconfig wlan0 channel 6 (or change to whatever channel your access point is transmitting on)
I'm trying to connect via my other laptop. Does this still count as a access point? How do I know what channel it is transmitting on?
 
  


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