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Old 04-08-2005, 02:25 PM   #1
buzznick
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Wireless woes...


OK, I'm at my wits end with Linux and am about to reinstall XP on my box. Mandrake 10.1 is about the 6th or 7th distro I've tried now and I'm still having troubles.

I installed Mandrake 10.1 and successfully configured the screen resolution to 1280x800 on my Gateway laptop after much trying. However, I just *CAN'T* seem to get the internal wireless network card to be recognized properly by Mandrake. If I go System>>Configuration>>Hardware>>Hardrake it seems to recognize my woreless card OK with the following details:

Identification
Vendor: Broadcom Corp.
Description: BCM94306 802.11g NIC
Media Class: NETWORK_OTHER

Connection
Bus: PCI
Bus PCI#: 1
PCI Device #: 9
PCI function #: 0
Vendor ID: 5348
Device ID: 17184
Sub Vendor ID: 6137
Sub device ID: 2

Misc
Module: unknown

Now if I go to Mandrakelinux Control Center and choose "Network & Internet>>Manage Connections", it doesn't give me the option of choosing my wireless device in the menu.

If, still in Control Center, I go to "Create New Connection" and choose "Wireless connection" and click Next... it asks me to manually load a driver. My driver is not showing up in the list.

Then I tried ndiswrapper (I did this once before successfully in Linspire) with my driver "BCMWL5A.INF" and ndiswrapper indicates that the driver is indeed present. Yet, if I do modprobe ndiswrapper I get the following error message:

"FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found"

I installed ndiswrapper with "ndiswrapper-0.9-1mdk.i586.rpm" - perhaps I'm using the wrong one? Perhaps I don't need ndiswrapper at all if Mandrake already seems to recognize my hardware? I have no clue what to do anymore so any help at all would be appreciated.


 
Old 04-08-2005, 06:13 PM   #2
mikevicious
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I'm also on a Gateway laptop, so if you follow what I did step-by-step, you should be good to go. I did it on Fedora, but things should be the same:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=311113
Skip down to "I'm going to assume that there isn't a native linux driver for your wireless card...."
We'll get it working yet.


By the way, how did you get the laptop to diplay in 1200x800? - I'm stuck at huge a-- 1024x768
 
Old 04-09-2005, 02:08 PM   #3
buzznick
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Hi Mike,

Thanks for that - I've wasted so much time this week with Linux that I'll have to wait till I have a spare couple of hours to try and get it sorted out - otherwise there'll be no bread on our table next month.

I used the gtf tool to generate a Modeline output for my laptop. I then added that into my XF86Config file and also added the 1280x800 under the relevant sections. Note that in my config file I had dual entries for a screen1 and screen2 so I simply duplicated everything.

To get the modeline you need, go into a console and do:

# gtf 1280 800 60

(If I remember correctly - you may want to check that out first)

Incidentally, my Gateway laptop is a model 7320GZ - there are three things that always trip me up with any distros I try and install:

1] Screen resolution (but know how to sort that now with GTF tool)
2] Getting inbuilt wireless to work (only distro I tried and got it to work with is Linspire so far - but I don't want Linspire on my box!)
3] Audio output - I've yet to install linux/unix on any machine (not just my gateway) and actually have sound!!

Nick
 
Old 04-09-2005, 04:49 PM   #4
buzznick
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Well.... I give up.... now I try and build ndiswrapper v1.1 I get tons of errors like "can't find kernel sources in..."

I've come to the conclusion that linux really sucks. I've been farting around with it for two weeks now - one step forward and two steps back all the way. If it isn't one problem it's another.

I'm going to sell this box on ebay on go out and buy an iBook - at least I know for the extra money it'll work and I won't have stress pains in my chest anymore.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 05:22 PM   #5
simeandrews
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If you arent going to try and work to get this great thing working, then ya, do that.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 06:25 PM   #6
mikevicious
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Yeah, getting it going was pretty frustrating. If you want to try a bit more:
1. Do you have the gcc and glibc packages installed? Not having those prevented ndiswrapper from making for me.
2. Install the kernel source package and create the source tree that ndiswrapper may be looking for:
a. up2date --get-source kernel
b. cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/
c. rpmbuild -bp --target=<arch> kernel.spec
(where arch is your architecture, i.e. i386, i686, determine this with uname -a)
For more on that, see:
http://fcp.homelinux.org/modules/sma...aq.php?faqid=1
AND/OR-
3. Try ndiswrapper 1.0 - it worked for me.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 06:27 PM   #7
mikevicious
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Also, the sound will work too - you just have to fiddle around. There's another post I'm on on here that goes into it, but if/when you get there we can continue this post (we'll end up renaming it The Definitive Guide to Everything on a Gateway Laptop). It'll be fun.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 10:29 PM   #8
buzznick
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OK Mike, I've been out to the movies and calmed down a bit so I'll give it one more shot. Fingers crossed.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 10:36 PM   #9
buzznick
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Simon... I been trying for two weeks to get some kind of Linux working properly. How much more trying before I see this "great" thing? I only see one other person here bending over backwards to try and help.
 
Old 04-09-2005, 10:49 PM   #10
buzznick
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Mike, that stuff seems specific to Fedora - I'm using Mandrake 10.1

What model Gateway is yours? If same/similar to mine, I might just replace drake with Core 3 and try that seeing as how you've had success with it. I guess I'm a bit wiser since I last tried FC3 and didn't get anywhere.

Thanks,
Nick
 
Old 04-09-2005, 10:55 PM   #11
Brian1
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Look over this help site on setting up ndiswrapper. http://www.brunolinux.com/08+-WiFi/Ndiswrapper.html
ndiswrapper is not bad to setup. I am not sure but I believe you need a copy of your current source kernel in /usr/src/linux location. I tried about a year ago and had no issues on getting it going. currently using a different card using madwifi drivers now.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "
 
Old 04-09-2005, 11:06 PM   #12
mikevicious
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Mine is a Gateway 4024GZ - pretty similar to yours (except your LCD can go to 1200x800 and mine maxes out at 1024x768 - doh!).
Yeah, I guess the source stuff was Fedora specific - they stopped putting out a separate kernel-source rpm so that's what you have to do.
If you have the kernel source installed already, you may need to do this:
* Make sure there is a link to the kernel source from the modules directory. /lib/modules/VERSION/build should be a link to the kernel source, where VERSION is the version of the kernel you are running. If there is no link, you'll get an error at the make install step. To create a link, assuming the kernel sources are present, use the command

ln -s /usr/src/linux-<kernel-version> /lib/modules/VERSION/build

from http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...p?Installation
 
Old 04-09-2005, 11:26 PM   #13
buzznick
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Phew..... OK will try again - thanks fellas
 
Old 04-10-2005, 01:31 AM   #14
thunderweasel
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The version of ndiswrapper that comes as an rpm on the Mandrake install CD's is crap, don't use it (it says it v 0.9, but loads v 0.8 and won't work properly). ndiswrapper 1.1 didn't work for me either, might be too new. I downloaded the source for ndiswrapper 0.9 from the download section of their sourceforge site (www.ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net) and just installed it myself and it all worked fine, you might want to give it a try too. Also, be sure to use lspci and match your numbers up with the cards on the ndiswrapper list to make sure you get the correct driver for your device (the driver that came with your hardware may or may not be the correct one for ndiswrapper). I spent about a week trying to get my wireless working as well, but just try installing ndiswrapper0.9 and make sure to follow the installation wiki (read it carefully, it's easy to miss simple stuff by being impatient), and make sure you're using the correct driver (don't necessarily use the one that came with your hardwrae, download it from the "Cards Known To Work" list page here: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...index.php/List ). Linux actually doesn't suck so bad once you get the wireless up and running. Trust me, I've felt your pain though.
 
  


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