Ok, after about a month, I FINALLY got ndiswrapper to work. But, every time I reboot, I have to type in:

iwconfig wlan0 essid <ESSID>,
iwconfig wlan0 key restricted <password>, and
dhclient wlan0.

I already added "modprobe ndiswrapper" to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file so that it does that automatically every time I reboot. But, it seems like there would be a better way to fix my problem than just to make it run those other commands every time I reboot, like I did to modprobe ndiswrapper. (Maybe there's a better way to get that one too.) There should be a way where I could somehow store my essid and password... Any help will be appreciated.

From Ben

P.S. I have Fedora Core 3 and 2.6.11-1.27_FC3.

I'd just stick everything in rc.local. That's what it's there for.

Dave

I aggree. The way around that would be some init script hacking. Not as pretty OR simple.

Check out these scripts. You need both rc.inet1.conf and rc.wireless.conf
properly setup. These will help you start your interface when you boot
the comp. And if you need further help, you can contact the author via
the information in his link. I don't know Fedora, but he is a Linux expert
with a large computer company...name withheld. And they run RedHat,
so he will know.

And for what it's worth, rc.inet1 is designed for this, not rc.local ->
inet = Internet address manipulation routines
issue "man inet" for more details

rc.inet1 doesn't exist on Fedora.

That is probably because Fedora doesn't comply with the published Linux standards,
such as the Linux File System Standard. But there should be startup scripts which will
load the wireless interface just as they do for the wired interface.

Happy Birthday Dave! How old? ;-)

Cheers! I'm 24. Nearly a quarter century. Ouch.

Yeah, RedHat / Fedora not complying with Linux standards? What a surprise!

A new script in rc[0-6].d would be the best solution on Fedora, but if it's for a single user workstation, I don't think there's much point.

Dave

Ok, first of all, thx for all the help. But, here's the thing. I added all those thing into rc.local because I got tired of trying to find another way, but for some reason, even though dhclient wlan0 is there, it doesn't work and I have to re-type that every time I reboot. Does anyone have any idea why that is? Thanks again for replying.

From Ben

ilikejam: as of next week... "I'll see your 24 & raise it that much, too." -- and I'm basically the same person I was when I was 1+(1/2) your age, quit worrying, already!:: the usual reward for livin' past you're teens is that you get older -- an' if sommone's a'found a way around thet, I'd certainly like ta ast 'em iff'n they also happens ta know tha' way backerds so's I c'n not only stop where I is, but mebbe gits back ta where you'uns is.

(And I only use such accents to amuse me & whoever else might get a kick from it; it does NOT mean that I've senile or some such !!!)

best!

Benjamin:
I had a similar problem on my laptop - issuing several iwconfig commands in a row seriously cunfused the Cisco WiFi drivers.

Try adding 'sleep 3' after each iwconfig command, and see if that helps.

Robert G. Hays:
/me sits in rocking chair, smoking pipe, reminiscing about the old days...

Dave

My problem isn't with the iwconfigs. When I turn on my computer, iwconfig just by itself shows the essid and password already set. My problem is that the dhclient wlan0 after all the iwconfigs isn't working. I have to re-do it (and nothing else) whenever I reboot. Do you think the sleep 3s will still help this?

Maybe. Try one between the last iwconfig and dhclient - it might take your card a while to scan for the network with the right SSID before dhclient will work. It might also be the authentication process taking a second or two. A few seconds sleep should be enough I'd imagine.

Dave

Oh yeah, that's a good point... I remember it was taking a while to set the essid when I was typing it all in manually. I'll try it now...

Nope, didn't work. Even sleep 20 didn't work...

I'm at a loss. There's no difference between rc.local running dhclient and you running it from a console.

Maybe the dhclient isn't in the default $PATH or something like that?
Try changing 'dhclient wlan0' to 'dhclient wlan0 &> /dhclientlog' then check the contents of '/dhclientlog' after you've booted.

Dave