Slack 12.2 Wireless problems on acer

OrexisGrimm · 04-05-2009, 08:56 PM

Okay I've watched the threads here and usually found what I needed, However this time I couldn't seem to find what I need

I run ifconfig and it gives the notice
eth0 -no wireless extentions

lo -no wireless extensions

I have tried using ndiswrapper still can't get it to pick up wlan
This is my first time running linux on a notebook pc so I am at a loss on how to set this up. everything else works except the wireless. so if anyone has any idea how to make it work?

(the machine is an aspire 4720z)
it's set to dual boot with vista if that makes any difference

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.

Yalla-One · 04-06-2009, 02:18 AM

Hello,

The more information you post, the easier it is to help :-)

Thus it'd be great if you could post back which wireless card sits in your computer, which drivers you tried with ndiswrapper and what errors (of any?) ndiswrapper gave?

one place to start is "lspci -v" and just cut out the lines pertaining to your particular card.

fotoguy · 04-06-2009, 04:35 AM

When installing using ndiswrapper, is the *.inf on it's own, or are there other files that are part of the driver there as well. Most network drivers have 3 or 4 files that accompany the *.inf file that ndiswrapper needs to install properly.

nerix · 04-06-2009, 05:07 AM

Code:

# ndiswrapper -i /path_to_driver_files/inf_file.INF

Check installation with;

Code:

# ndiswrapper -l

Code:

# modprobe ndiswrapper

Activating the card on boot, add below line to "/etc/rc.d/rc.modules" file and save.

Code:

/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

Start your wireless-lan interface with;

Code:

# /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_start

Now you need to install a network manager (or you can manually configure network using network configuration files).
I prefer wicd. You can find it in the extra directory of Slackware tree.

Code:

# wget -m ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/slackware/slackware-12.2/extra/wicd/wicd-1.5.6-noarch-2.tgz

fotoguy · 04-06-2009, 07:03 AM

You also need to add an alias for your wireless card to work, once you have installed the *.inf file, also run this command.

Code:

ndiswrapper -m

You then should have something like this from the console

Code:

adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper ...

if you don't, then there maybe already a file called /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. If there is, just delete it, and run the command again

OrexisGrimm · 04-06-2009, 05:18 PM

Thank you all for the advice I'm gonna retry in a day or so here it's a friends laptop I run linux on my desktops and they have fallen in love with it so asked me to convert the laptop over to linux leaving vista in a small corner for some games, So I have to wait until they stop by in a day or two so I can try again I'll let you know if I get it sorted.

Thanks again. I'll keep you posted.

OrexisGrimm · 04-09-2009, 03:42 AM

It's running broadcom 800.11 I got the drivers for it off the acer site...installed it using ndiswrapper, Modified the files listed and still this is what I get using iwconfig ifconfig and ndiswrapper -l to see the drivers, I still can't figure it out any ideas (console data below)

root@sara:~# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl6 : driver installed
root@sara:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:68:68:8a:ae
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:18

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:14032 (13.7 KiB) TX bytes:14032 (13.7 KiB)

root@sara:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.