I just recently upgraded to Mandrake 10.0 and installed ndiswrapper 0.8

the installation goes all right until...
After the ">modprobe ndiswrapper" line. I check to see if it worked with ">dmesg"
somewhere it's supposed to say wlan0(or something like that), but it doesn't

The other problem I'm having is that when I'm supposed to do the ">iwconfig" it has no idea what that is

>ifconfig, however, shows a Lo(looback) network thingy at 127.0.0.1
and that's it

can someone please give me some advice????

Did you follow the instructions in the INSTALL file?
I suppose, your using an unsupported card via ndiswrapper, so which one is it, and did you get the appropriate windows driver?

first for iwconfig to work you need to have wireless tools installed, it comes on one of the cds and you can install it through the control center

then try this
>ndiswrapper -l <<<<this should tell you that driver X is installed if your card installed properly
then
>modprobe ndiswrapper
then
>lsmod <<<after this look for ndiswrapper in the list
then try
>iwconfig


hope that helps

I did follow the INSTALL file.

I'm using a Linksys WMP54G(Broadcom 43xx) which is "supported"
I used the drivers off the disk.
Linksys doesn't have newer drivers on their site, and say "This Product[WMP54G] does not require a Driver"

1. like stuart already asked, what exactly does the ndiswrapper -l command give back?
2. look under /etc/ndiswrapper/
There should be a directory with the name of your card. If it's empty, ndiswrapper messed up the installation process. This can be caused by it's case-sensitivity at the ndiswrapper -i /path/yourcard.inf for example, if your cards driver comes with yourcard.INF. If thats the case, you better rename the .INF to .inf, do an ndiswrapper -l followed by an ndiswrapper -e (displayed name), and do the ndiswrapper -i /path/yourcard.inf again...

ndiswrapper -l gives back:
bcmwl5 present

I installed the wireless tools, but ">iwconfig" doesn't display any devices
It still doesn't show anything resembling:
wlan0: ndiswrapper.....xx.xx.xx.xx....
when I do ">dmesg"

in the /etc/ndiswrapper there is a bcmwl5 folder with bmcwl5.sys/.inf and some files labeled with what looks like a MAC address

hmmm...
Just to get this right, iwconfig doesn't even show your LAN (as i suppose you have one on your system)? Would look like eth0...
Because ndiswrapper seems to work ok if its shows your card as present...

Right.
But I don't think Linux know there's a ethernet card built-into my Motherboard.

I have to switch from Linux to Windows when I need to get online
hence why I want to get my wireless to work with Linux.


Should I install my built-in eth0 even though I don't/won't use it?

Welcome to the club... (See my problem in this forum )

Well, i'm not exactly a Linux Pro, since i myself installed linux only 3 weeks ago, but i had to play around a lot with ndiswrapper too, and got it up and running under Mandrake 10 Community and right now SuSE 9.1 (set aside my webpage problems, which i by now blame on the driver), so as far as i get your problem, it is likely not connected to any ndiswrapper failtures but to a general network failture on your pc. One possible explanation i could imagine is that disabling your built-in ethernet AND Drake not natively supporting your Wlan-card skipped the whole network system installation at all with your system looking network-free to Drake at all. What you might give a try is opening HardDrake and manually installing any wireless LAN card supported (or installing your ethernet device temporarly).
Wouldn't be surprised, if you're suddently asked for some of your installation discs.

Might be worth a try...

For Mandrake 10 if you think thats its not noticing your onboard card you can check this by going Configure Your Computer>>Hardware>>Hardware>>Ethernet Card and it should show you there if your adapter has been detected, i to have a boardcom chipset onbard on an asus laptop and it detects fine.

Again im gonna ask you to do this

>modprobe ndiswrapper
then
>lsmod <<<after this look for ndiswrapper in the list

in the output of lsmod do you see ndiswrapper?

It seems your driver has been installed properly with ndiswrapper.
It might help to install your other network card also even though you arent gonna use it, im not sure on that oneit might initialise some networking things that arent on your system that ndiswrapper doesnt setup and you can always stop it by typing >ifconfig eth0 down

">lsmod" does show ndiswrapper, but nothing else related to my drivers.

The first time I ran it showed my drivers at the very top of the list.

Then when I ran the ">iwconfig" it worked, and I configged it; however, when I ran the ">ndiswrapper -m" line and is said something about that config already existing.

Also, in the Managed Connections tool on the Control Panel when I told it to run DHCP and clicked install. It ejected the CD-Rom but didn't ask for a disk.

And now I can't see wlan0 with ">iwconfig"
OR my drivers when I run ">lsmod"

I've got the iwconfig to config the card, but I not running my computer as a DHCP server and I need Linux to realize that.

I can't set up my internet connection with the Network Config tool still,
Nor can I see my wireless network

Just to clarify:
'iwconfig wlan0' shows details about your card and you can set the ESSID and key etc?
'ifconfig wlan0' - what does that show?
'route' - what does that show?
Does your AP run a DHCP server to give your card an IP address and set up the default route and nameserver info?

If the AP is the DHCP server then you may need to run 'dhcpcd wlan0' to get the card to talk to it.

Once you get it set up then you can put the right bits into the ifcfg-wlan0 configuration file.

Are you sure that your onboard NIC hasn't been detected and installed? If there's no cable in it then you should still be ok but if ifconfig shows eth0 as well as wlan0 then you may need to 'ifconfig eth0 down' to make sure it's not interfering.

The other thing that may be relevant is that if you're using WEP make sure the key is correct - it won't tell you if it's wrong but you won't be able to set the iwconfig stuff.

Right.
'iwconfig wlan0' will show the config and what not
and...
Here's what it displays when I first log in:


[root@localhost /]# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate:54Mb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
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:170 Missed beacon:0

[root@localhost /]# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:41:62:C1:0C
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:41ff:fe62:c10c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:2430 (2.3 Kb)
Interrupt:19 Memory:fb004000-fb005fff

[root@localhost /]# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
[root@localhost /]# dhcpcd wlan0
[root@localhost /]# /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd.exe: line 27: .: filename argument required
.: usage: . filename


My AP is set up to run as a DHCP server,
and the wlan0 is the Only card seen. As far as Linux knows there is no such thing as an eth0
I do config everything correctly, but when I logout and log back in it doesn't save the config

so your card works fine now until you reboot??? when it looses its settings?


if dhcpcd is giving issues try dhclient


if thats the case this is how i fixed that issue


i logged into X as root, then edited this file /etc/rc.local

right at the bottom i added these lines

iwconfig eth0 essid ESSIDHERE
iwconfig eth0 key KEYHERE
dhclient eth0

that sets my essid, wep key and gets an ip address from the AP every time my system boots


i got this fix from another thread so hope this helps because it worked for me