ok i know i saw this on other boards. my problem is i cant seem to get ndiswrapper to even work, now i am new to this and i have been trying to follow the directions from the creators of the wrapper....can someone link me to a newb how to or step by step for this...i have the windows drivers and the newest version of ndiswrapper, also im running mepis 3.4 with kernal 2.6.? like i said im new to this....pls lead me....

update i ran lspci and found that the wireless card is installed so now im thinking im having a problem with the led button in the front not being recognized

Did not speicfy laptop model but many new ACER are alike. On some distros the LED will be on all the time others it will blink with network traffic.

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Gent...005WLMi_Manual

For ndiswrapper to install you need the current running kernel source installed. It is located in /usr/src/. and usually in a directory called linux. Sometimes it may be linux-<version_number>. You can get the kernel source at www.kernel.org unless it is a modified patched version, then you need to find it at Mepis site or on your CD.

Brian1

hi Brian. what does this mean?

For ndiswrapper to install you need the current running kernel source installed.

i'm totally confused. isn't linux running already? it needs the source to run, right? i'm missing something here, aren't i?

thanks for the help.

I've noticed on my acer 3001CLi (I think) (running an updated SMepis 3.3.2) that:
(1) wireless is craap on this machine and only works some times (even in winblows),
(2) trying to get the wireless started at bootup with battery-only causes the machine to haaaang,
(3) the front button is useless in Linux (unless its specifically mapped) but turning it off in Windows disables the wireless in Linux upon boot (leave it on in windows when shutting down)

good luck...

When I mean the current running kernel source is the kernel itself is a piece of software. The source I am talking about is the source code that you compile from to work with your hardware configuration. Best way is to start reading about the kernel to understand it. You can get kernel source code from http://www.kernel.org.

Now ndiswrapper builds its modules with the kernels source code. That is the way ndiswrapper is built. Why I do not know. Why not a self contain generic module compatiable to all kerenls, I do not now. If you upgrade the kernel later then ndiswrapper will need to be rebuilt again to match the new kernel.

Might try using the search here and use search varibles like ' Mepis kernel source ndiswrapper ' to learn more about kernel source on Mepis.

Sorry to be vague but it is a very complex subject.
Brian1

thanks for the info. in short, one has to make sure that the ndiswrapper version is compatible with the linux kernel one is using, right?

this is good information for me to file away for the moment - thanks.

There can always be issues on the build with the latest bleeding edge kernels, but should not take ndiswrapper developers long to get it to work.

Brian1

thanks for the info brian, i did find out something though, i need that button in the front to work on my acer
as3003wlci and unfortunatly to get it to work is well beyond my linux knowledge...

look into "linux keymapping" or even this nice link that i just found:
http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~tauber/acerhk/

Right. That's the way Linus wants it. All the low-level code such as device drivers and ndiswrapper should be recompiled for compatibility with each kernel with which it will be used.

One reason I can think of for his making this decision is that it greatly opens opportunities for the kernel team to innovate---they are not locked into maintaining exquisitely low-level backward compatibility.

I dont know about your ACER laptop, but mine was impossible too.
UNTIL ....
*** Download the LATEST Mepis live CD ***
*** Install Mepis onto your laptop ...
Start the Control Center ... go into "Internet & Network" & "Wireless Network"
- fill in a value for your network name
- operation mode is managed
- speed is auto
- only check encryption if your wireless network requires a key
- you can click the "Autodetect" button if you like ... it should come up as "ath0"
- now, you MUST CLICK "Activate" ... in about 15 seconds, you should be going

NOTE: This has worked for me, but I still cant make the wireless functional on bootup! You must ALWAYS go into the control center and "ACTIVATE" or .... NO WIRELESS. Otherwise, it works great!