Getting my Linksys WMP11V4 working in Linux
 

Let me first mention what Linux OS I'm using... I'm using Gentoo Linux 2005.0

So... I have had this computer hooked up via wire for the longest time with a Linksys card and its never caused me a problem both in Linux and Windows. Now, as my life changed and I started to move from house to house I had to move my Desktop computer around places. I wasnt able to be hooked up via Wire all the time so I went out and looked at Wireless cards. Little did I know Wireless with Linux was a whole other world. So... I purchased the network card and later on I discovered that the version of card I had purchased was not compatable with Linux because of the chipset. So I went and spent as much time as I needed googleing and reading up on how to get it working.

I ended up using ndiswrapper to install the Windows drivers. Once I modprobed ndiswrapper I quickly was able to connect to my wireless router. For some reason though after I was completed with the instructions I printed out from the tutorial I had I was getting Error packets from the wlan0 interface. I thought to myself that I had to configure /etc/conf.d/net with some wireless network stuff.

Can someone please be kind enough to please direct me to a known tutorial or solution to this common? problem.

Thank you very much in advance,

George

Is this by any chance an encryption issue? I have a Linksys WMP54GS pci wireless NIC. When I first started setting it up, I merged the wireless-tools package and ndiswrapper. Once ndiswrapper found and copied the XP drivers, the card was initialized, and I was able to see wlan0 using ifconfig. I was also able to use the wireless tools to check the frequency, channel, transmit power, and so forth. I noticed in the ifconfig output that wlan0 had not been assigned an IP address. I went to the wireless configuration in /etc/conf.d and played with that. That didn't fix the issue. Then, off the wall, I decided to look in the net-wireless directory and see what other packages were available. To make an already long story not much longer, I realized that the router was using wpa encryption. I merged wpa_supplicant, slaved over getting the configuration file right for about 3 weeks, started its daemon and haven't had any trouble since. My biggest problem with the wpa_supplicant.conf file was the wealth of information contained in the sample. The biggest thing was to actually put the wpa key into the file and tell it the type of encryption (WPA TKIP). The issue with the key was that the key generated by the router has special characters in it, so I had to enter them in the config file in 2-digit hexadecimal format. After that, everything worked fine.

It that is your problem, the wpa_supplicant configuration file will allow different keys and encryption modes for different access points.

I hope this has been of some help.

Good luck, George!

Nope, this isnt an encryption issue. I specifically disabled WEP on purpose. However I do have mac address filtering enabled and that works fine. Would that be a issue? If I use ifconfig I cannot see wlan0 but if I use iwconfig from the wireless-tools package I emerged I can see it. I have to modprobe ndiswrapper though in order for iwconfig to work. I did edit /etc/modprobe.conf according to the instructions I had with some options stuff. Anyway that isnt a big deal anyway since I could always put "modprobe ndiswrapper" inside /etc/conf.d/local.start. Now I do believe I have to figure out how to merge those packages like you said and look at your post more closely to solve this. I do notice that you have the Speedbooster according to your model that you posted. Mine is just a Wireless B Linksys card. I also wanted to verify my version and yes it is a WMP11V4... phew :) at least i'm not mentioning the wrong version for help. May I ask, what Linux flavor are you using?

--George

It wasn't for me. And yes, I have MAC filtering enabled, too.

Since I knew that WEP would set me back in configuring my card with the config files. But thanks for the info if I decided to go WEP. As of now i'm not recieving an IP. So, I have wireless-tools and ndiswrapper installed. If I merged the two packages together it would allow me to use ifconfig to see wlan0? When I get home I think i'm going to mess with the wireless settings in /etc/forgot_exact_path. I just need to define IPs or something. Do I really have to merge those two packages? I guess so since I need to duplicate or get close to your configuration. To get those two packages on my system I emerged both of them individually. Did you do that?

--George

Here's where our setups diverge. WPA_Supplicant takes care of everything for me, including getting an IP address via dhcp. But, even when I didn't have it setup correctly, as long as the wireless connection was made, I still saw wlan0 when I entered ifconfig.

If I read your last post correctly, you aren't even seeing wlan0 in ifconfig? You should be able to, even though it won't show the additional information that iwconfig shows. Before I comment further, did I understand you correctly...iwconfig doesn't show wlan0?

If I read your last post correctly, you aren't even seeing wlan0 in ifconfig? You should be able to, even though it won't show the additional information that iwconfig shows. Before I comment further, did I understand you correctly...iwconfig doesn't show wlan0?


Correct... I wasnt able to see wlan0 with ifconfig

Incorrect... I was only able to see wlan0 with iwconfig from the wireless-tools package only if I modprobed ndiswrapper which temporarilly set and loaded the driver and card in memory. ndiswrapper -l shows that everythings functional. I put "modprobe ndiswrapper" in /etc/conf.d/local.start so it starts at the end of the OS boot process which is sufficient for me. I believe I can set it differently but didnt care to look into it further. Once its modprobed when I do iwconfig I see ifconfig just fine. I still am not home so I cannot return a response saying whether the config files I was going to edit worked or not.

Oh, and ifconfig and iwconfig work only as root FYI. I just thought i'd mention that.

--George

Most configuration tools only work as root. That's why there's su. :D

Also, if you do decide at some point to start using wpa or wep, be sure to chmod the config file to prevent non-admin users from even reading the file.

I didn't think to mention loading ndiswrapper. I just assumed you had loaded. Since you aren't using encryption, you should actually be able to do the usual net setup to get an ip address: "rc-update add net.wlan0 default". The init script will take it from here and use dhcp to get an ip address.

In another forum I mentioned that I'd like to see native Linux drivers for the BCM4306. Really, the ndiswrapper does a fine job. Linux generally does a slightly better job of networking than Windows, and I really do get better throughput from the XP driver in Linux. How odd.

I'll be out for about 6 hours, so I'll check back this evening.

I tried doing the rc-update stuff however it seems that I dont have a net.wlan0 as it doesnt exist in /etc/init.d. I have a hunch i'm missing a package or something. I have net.eth0 net.lo and net.ppp0. thats all done and well for the wired and VPN but I think there should be a net.wlan0 in existance once I do something... Unless I use that configurator that you used or do something else maybe from a suggestion I will find on google otherwise i'm stuck in the water...

By the way, I appreaciate your help and value your awnsers.

--George

Hmmmm, Maybe i'm missing a package to get a IP? I know offhand that I have wireless-tools, I recently installed wpa_supplicant just in case I want to go use WEP. I found linux-wlan-ng version 0.2.0-r3 however that can only be emerged if I had a 2.4 kernel. I looked on google and found their homepage for that package. It doesnt seem that that will help me though. Am I wrong? Its bothering me that you see wlan0 in ifconfig and I dont.

I just found out that if I do ifconfig normally just doing ifconfig eth0 and lo show up with no wlan0 while all three show up with iwconfig. HOWEVER, if I do ifconfig wlan0 I see wlan0 but with no IP address. Let me mention this though... I do have my wired network setup statically on that system. I was reading something off of google mentioning that if you had a computer with a wired card and wireless you could bridge them (http://www.sorgonet.com/network/adva...lesswithlinux/). Thats not what I want is it? I already tried that. I got as far as installing the bridging package then trying to do what he said. I gave up once I got the first unsuccessful message of "bridge not installed" since i'm tired. Maybe I should just set that computer up via DHCP temporarily to see if it fixes problem? HMM, Tommorrow i'll look into if there is a config directory I overlooked in /etc.

HEY, at least i'm getting somewhere :).

--George

I think you have everything you need. The wireless-tools simply take care of the added capabilities and parameters needed over a normal wired NIC. Since wpa_supplicant is in my init scripts and handles everything for me, I really can't tell you what might be wrong. If I think of something else, I'll let you know.

OK, well thanks for your help. I'll be working on trying to find a fix

--George

Hey,

I was thinking of getting a compatable Linux wireless card as I do want true native support. I will get rid of this card out of this computer. I work at CompUSA and I can get discounts... I could either get a USB wireless stick or preferabbly get another PCI wirless card. I could get D-Links or Netgears. I do believe Netgears are compatable.

From some of my searching this is what I get:

Netgear:

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...2830&Ne=200000


D-Link:

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...0859&Ne=400000

Well, we also have a bunch of more brands. I just wanna know whats the best in your experience. I think i'm going to search around via forums or this other compatability site I found that I have to search for.

--George

Look in /usr/portage/net-wireless and do esearch <<name>> to get a description about each item. There don't appear to be all that many different drivers available, but you can see what is available in the portage tree.