Hi All,

I just did my first Linux installation. I used the Ubuntu distro and made a dual-boot on a PC also running WinXP Home. It took a couple of tries, but the installation seems to have gone properly with one major problem...

When booted in Linux, my wireless networking card does not show up in the Networking Admin area. My enet card shows up, but it's not connected to anything, so there's no internet connectivity. DHCP also bombed out during the install, presumably since the installer didn't find the wireless card.

I have a home network that goes to the internet through a Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

It's a Linksys 802.11b/g card with a Broadcom 4306 chipset. I've been googling like crazy and would up on this forum. I believe much of my problem has already been asked and answered, so I'd really like to confirm what I've read elsewhere and make sure it's still the case. So, thanks to those of you who read this and take the time to respond.

1. It seems there are no 'native' drivers for this chipset in Linux, so I'm going to have to use the Windows driver.

2. To use this, I'll need to use something called ndiswrapper.

3. I'll also need the Windows drivers, which, since I don't have any internet or network connectivity, I'll need to burn to a CD and then copy to the Linux file system somewhere.

4. Since my card doesn't show in the Networks area in the Admin section I'm wondering if I somehow must 'fix' that before I can install and configure the drivers. The Help section says there's an Add button in there to add a connection, but there's no Add button on mine.

5. I know my ssid, and I don't use WEP or WPA (I know, I'm bad), so that should be no problem.

6. After I do all this, I'll need to re-boot and then hopefully my card will work.

Is this about right, and have I missed any critical steps? I could string an enet cable to the PC if I really needed to, but it would be a big PITA and I'd much rather get the wireless card working without it.

Thanks,
Randy

It looks good. Tips:
Linux can access the Windows partition with at least read mode, so you probably do not have to burn a cd.
Print out the entire Installation page of the NdisWrapper Wiki and follow to the letter. Come back with all Problems.

I'll do just that, and thanks.

How do I access the drivers from the Windows partition, or will the Wiki tell me that?

Thanks.

The Wiki is not about accessing your Windows Partition, so it will not have that. Is there something called System or similar to browse /dev/hda1? I think that would be there in Ubuntu.

I wrote a short description on how I got my card/adapter to work using ndiswrapper here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...at=144&page=2.

It's not entirely confusing, but you have to make sure you have the .inf file.

Well, I am back.

I am following the instructions at http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/toptip3.shtml to get to the drivers, then http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/NDIS_Wrapper to use ndiswrapper to install the drivers, and then http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Wireless_networking to configure everything.

I'm stuck on the second part. After getting schooled in another forum here on the use of 'sudo', I was able to make a directory to mount my Windows hard drive (very cool).

The next thing to do was to make sure I had ndiswrapper available. When I executed this command:

# find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -name "*ndiswrapper*"

I got:

/lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper
/lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko

which must mean something, but it doesn't mean I'm OK, because the next command I executed was:

# ndiswrapper

which returned:

bash: ndiswrapper: command not found

which is where I am now. I am a long way from certain about this, but it seems that maybe I have the ndiswrapper install file, but the program itself hasn't been installed. Or not. In the wiki there are some instructions on how to install it, but when I tried:

make
make install

after navigating to the directory with ndiswrapper.ko in it I got error messages telling me I hadn't specified targets and other information it needed.

So, I'm stuck, and would certainly appreciate any advice.

And, I'm wondering if I should just stop what I'm doing and buy a good book targeted at People Who Are Very Familiar With Windows and Aren't Completely Stupid But Also Aren't Linux People or something like that.

Thanks,
Randy

I think I have the ndiswrapper thing figured out, or at least the installation piece of it. I found something called Synaptics Package Manager, and after some messing about I no longer get errors when I run ndiswrapper. I don't get the drivers installed, either, but I'm making progress.

More later, I'm sure.

A new snag.

I got ndiswrapper to run, and found the .inf file for the driver that Windows uses, but when I do

ndiswrapper -l

I'm told that there are no drivers and that the driver I installed in invalid.

Does this mean I have to find a different driver??? The driver I loaded is directly from the Windows partition on the computer, and using that is what I've seen recommended elsewhere...

Thanks,
Randy

Yes, it does mean you have to get a different driver. I had the exact same problem, but then I went to the company's website and downloaded the drivers directly from them, and used those. I had no problems after that.

I found a way around the whole ndiswrapper thing, at least so far.

I replaced my ubuntu distro with simplymepis 3.3, and thus far it's working beautifully. It found my wireless and configured it right off the bat. I haven't been able to connect to my home network yet, but I do have internet access.

Still lots of things to figure out, but this probably isn't the right forum, unless somebody can give me a hint as to how I make my home network find my new connection.

Thanks to all for their assistance!