Ndiswrapper sees device but noting happens. (Debian)
 

Hello, I'm trying to get a Netgear wg111v2 wifi dongle to work on my Debian machine through ndiswrapper. I know that it's possible, because before reinstalling Debian, it DID work. Now, the drivers inside ndiswrapper seem to be correctly installed and it tells me that the hardware is found. However, no internet connection. What's most likely going wrong? Do i need to provide additional information?

What version of Debian are you running? Is this the same version as you had before when the wireless worked with ndiswrapper? What version of ndiswrapper is it? What parts of ndiswrapper do you have installed? What install procedure did you use to install the Windows driver inside ndiswrapper?

This is the procedure I always used on my old laptop and I never had any difficulty.

I'm running Debian Squeese, yes, it's the same version

I tried installing Flightgear from wheesy (the one in squeese is really old), but that turned out to be the worst idea. APT crashed and my system became unuseable. I eventually solved the problem by installing Debian on my second hard drive.

A question: Once I installed the .inf file in ndiswrapper, can the .inf file be removed?

Ndiswrapper -l said that the driver was installed and the hardware present.

I'll try those commands you gave me.

That wireless chip is supported by the free drivers-

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/rtl8187

I'd be trying that before stuffing around with the horror that is ndiswrapper.

Ok, already installed ndiswrapper, but I'll give those linux drivers a go, looks more elegant to me...

EDIT: Thus far:

Ndiswrapper detected the device but then nothing happened.

These Linux drivers's wiki was apparently down. I tried the Debian wiki, where it sais to install "wireless-tools" they said would work with that rtl818x thing.
It then told be it was already installed and nothing happened. I do have to add to this that I do not have a wlan0 interface in /etc/network/interfaces, but I do have NetworkManager (That is just sitting idle.)

I also tried the instructions on http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download, but nothing happened either.

EDIT 2: NetworkManager is working again, and is now managing my wired connection. I've also got ndiswrapper that has the driver installed and saying that it sees the device. Still no wifi.

No sign of those Linux drivers working.

Trying to use ndiswrapper again (since it was working the first time), I sent the command: tail /var/log/messages
That last line looks interesting to me... Any ideas what link it is talking about?

ANOTHER EDIT:

I found a Linux driver for this chipset on Realtek's website. I built and installed it, rebooted, but it still somehow won't connect. Plugging in the device apparently does make wlan0 go up.

Excellent sleuthing Cascade.

Werner, have you got non-free enabled in your sources list? There is no need to use either ndiswrapper or compile from source. The package you need is the top one listed on this page. So you have two options, remove the ndiswrapper and compiled drivers and enable non-free to install the native Debian package. Or doa clean reinstall of your system and just enable non-free to install the native Debian package.

Thanks a lot! How can I remove all that other stuff that I just installed?

k3lt01, are you shure that that is the right package? I son't see rtl818x or rtl8187L mentioned there...

EDIT:

Hey, ndiswrapper turned out to work! :D!!!

I got the windows NT drivers from Realtek and hooked them up to ndiswrapper, and it immediately went online.
(I'm currently sending this message trough the wg111v2 dongle by the way.)

It's good that it worked for you with ndiswrapper.

When you look at Debian packages the title doesn't always tell you much. You need to look at the description and it tells you what it will do, the file list also gives you some info on it.

which NT driver did you get from Realtek that made your WG111v2 dongle work?
 

Hi Werner,

I have an "old" Netgear WG111v2 WiFi USB dongle, which I would like to make it work in Ubuntu 13.04. Thus far, I did not have much luck.

I just read your post in this thread, saying that you sucessfully made the WG111v2 USB WiFi dongle work, and that lightens up my hope. Like you, I have installed the ndiswrappers required. But, before I could make it work, I need a driver in the format of .inf.

I went to Realtek website:
http://www.official-drivers.com/inst...FS9dQgodziMAjw

and I could not find any driver have an extension .inf. I would appreciate if you could share with me the NT driver you use to bring up the dongle, and show me where I could obtain it.


Thanks,

Kow9loon

Hi kow9loon,

The wifi dongle has, after an update, broken down again, and I switched to another one.

That was probably stupid because the update probably contained new "native" drivers that took over the device, that I should have blacklisted instead of buying new hardware.

I'm currently not on my main pc now, but I believe you can see which driver is being used when you plug in the device and look in /var/log/messages.

Il see if I can get you the NT driver as soon as I get back from work, but in the meantime you might want to try to go native with your drivers, but make shure that you blacklist the wrong drivers. (and use the correct syntax, that's what went wrong for me).

I believe the Debian repository has a packet with the proper drivers, not shure for Ubuntu.

I'd try the rtl8187 module before using ndiswrapper.