Wireless newbie! Any easy instructions around?
Forum: Networking
Topic: Wireless newbie! Any easy instructions around?
started by: blip
Posted by blip on Sep. 22 2007,11:28
HiI bought a wireless PCI card from the dsl wiki ( a Linksys Wireless A+G 5211 card).
I've popped it in and tried to run NDISWRAPPER and pointed it to the driver 5211.inf but it's saying 'No Connection'. Should one try NDISWRAPPER first to get wireless going or do you suggest something else?
I know wireless can take ages fiddling around....anyone got any simple instructions they could point me to please? It's just a case of pointing NDISWRAPPER to the .inf file isn't it ? All the .sys files are there and the .inf file. Perhaps it won't work!?
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 22 2007,12:09
I didn't read the wireless section in the wiki, but I would've thought it'd point you in the direction of a card with native linux support?Before trying ndiswrapper, it might be an idea to check if there is a driver for your card in dsl. If you decide to go with ndiswrapper, it would be a good idea to check the sourceforge site to see which drivers are recommended - in any case, with ndiswrapper you will need both the *.inf and *.sys files
Posted by WDef on Sep. 22 2007,12:47
| Quote |
| Linksys Wireless A+G 5211 card |
I couldn't see that particular card there.
Ideally you want one under the "works out the box" category.
There's absolutely no guarantees that ndiswrapper will work with some random Windows wireless driver. Even when it is supposed to work according to the list on the ndiswrapper website, you have to have the right version of the windows driver. I never got ndiswrapper working for Intel 2200BG after trying multiple versions of the windows driver and multiple versions of ndiswrapper, including those it was supposed to work with according to various reports on the web.
Posted by blip on Sep. 22 2007,20:24
Ok Sorry for the mistake everyone . I've opened my PC and taken the card out.I do own a Linksys WMP55AG version 1.2 which should work out of the box. This is a dumb ass question but how do you get it to work out of the box?
Which app do you run ? If you can point me to some instructions it will save you all explaining.Sorry I confused you..
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 23 2007,09:43
Maybe the first thing to do would be to use "lspci", "lsusb" or whatever to see which chipset your card has - once you know that, you can start chasing a driver.
Posted by roberts on Sep. 23 2007,15:21
Often you can type iwconfig to see if your wireless card is recognized and just needs to be configured. If you see "no wireless extensions" then it was not recognized out of the box. However it could still be only a boot paramter away, i.e., pci=assign-bussesConfiguring the card can depend on the chipset and there are several GUI tools for that.
Posted by blip on Sep. 24 2007,16:03
Thanks everyone. Very helpful as always.
Posted by blip on Sep. 24 2007,20:32
I tried this Roberts....It looks like it can't see any wireless PCI card 
There's a green light coming out of the card so it must be working
dsl@box:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wifi0 no wireless extensions.
ath0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:0kb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0/94 Signal level:-95 dBm Noise level:-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
Posted by roberts on Sep. 24 2007,21:10
Actually that is a good sign, you have an "out of the box" detected but unconfigured ath0.That is exactly like mine. Using iwconfig gui changing eth0 to ath0 and specifying wep and essid works for me.
You should probably boot with nodhcp so that you don't have a pump (dhcp request hanging)
You still may have in irq conflict, but lets hope for the best.
You can use iwconfig commands or the gui, if using a wep key enter as colon separated pairs, i.e., 12:34:45:99:..
Some wireless card balk at the pump command and you must use a static ip. But lets hope that using iwconfig or its gui works for you.
Posted by blip on Sep. 28 2007,22:02
Hey Robert. I am now typing this on wirless on DSL 3.4 Thanks I didn´t think I´d get it working to be honest. I used DHCP and it picked it up from the router.
Anyone - make sure you get an out of the box wireless card- they are only $20 now (mine was a linksys) and it saves *so* much hassle. Hoorah!
Posted by blip on Sep. 30 2007,20:53
Please can anyone tell me how to preserve my wireless settings? When I backup / do a reboot iwconfig has lost all the wireless settings ( like wep key/sid e.t.c)........Thanks a lot
Posted by kuky on Sep. 30 2007,21:09
i add a line in /opt/bootlocal.sh, open and edit with beaver and add the line iwconfig bla bla bla (in my caseiwconfig wlan0 essid "name of wireless workgroup" mode "managed" channel "1-14( dep of country)" key "your key wep".
Posted by dreamcarrior on Oct. 12 2007,17:54
| Quote (roberts @ Sep. 24 2007,17:10) |
| You should probably boot with nodhcp so that you don't have a pump (dhcp request hanging) You still may have in irq conflict, but lets hope for the best. You can use iwconfig commands or the gui, if using a wep key enter as colon separated pairs, i.e., 12:34:45:99:.. Some wireless card balk at the pump command and you must use a static ip. But lets hope that using iwconfig or its gui works for you. |
Robert,
I recently got an Acer Aspire 3680 notebook computer with an atheros wireless card. I have exactly output as yours using iwconfig. I followed your suggestion booting with nodhcp (along with toram and xsetup). I used the iwconfig gui (from DSLpanel), by the way this is dsl-4.0RC5, changing eth0 to ath0, and entering sid and wep key, then right upon clicking OK button, the whole system froze. So I might have irq conflict, right? I am wondering how to get the wireless to work. Thanks.
Posted by roberts on Oct. 13 2007,01:46
Check for irq conflict bydmesg | grep -i irq
Look for your netcard's irq
look at irq assignments with
cat /proc/interrupts
Posted by dreamcarrior on Oct. 13 2007,18:35
| Code Sample |
| dmesg | grep -i irq <4>ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Edge set to Level Trigger. <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 12 14 15) *11 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *11 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 11 12 14 15) *10 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *11 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *11 12 14 15) <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 10 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] enabled at IRQ 10 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 11 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] enabled at IRQ 11 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11 <4>ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] enabled at IRQ 10 <6>PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing <4>ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 <4>ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 <6>ehci_hcd 00:1d.7: irq 11, pci mem f8b41000 <6>usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1820, IRQ 11 <6>usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1840, IRQ 11 <6>usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1860, IRQ 10 <6>usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1880, IRQ 10 <6>Yenta ISA IRQ mask 0x00f8, PCI irq 10 <6>Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled <6>wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0xd0000000, irq=11 |
| Code Sample |
| cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 0: 302063 XT-PIC timer 1: 338 XT-PIC keyboard 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 8: 0 XT-PIC rtc 9: 1568 XT-PIC acpi 10: 0 XT-PIC usb-uhci, usb-uhci, PCI device 104c:8039 (Texas Instruments) 11: 598 XT-PIC ehci_hcd, usb-uhci, usb-uhci, wifi0 12: 10634 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse 14: 267 XT-PIC ide0 15: 4531 XT-PIC ide1 NMI: 0 LOC: 15914 ERR: 0 MIS: 0 |
Looks like I do have an IRQ conflict. So I will need to reassign the IRQ for wifi0 (for the atheros card) if I would like to get it to work.
What I don't understand is from iwconfig, I got both wifi0 and ath0. Why does the same device appear twice?
| Code Sample |
| iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. wifi0 no wireless extensions. ath0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:0kb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm Sensitivity=0/3 Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality:0/94 Signal level:-95 dBm Noise level:-95 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 |
Posted by roberts on Oct. 13 2007,20:38
Some boot options for you to try:pnpbios=off
pci=bios
pci-assign-busses
Having both wifi0 and ath0 is normal for atheros cards.
Posted by bokaroseani on Oct. 28 2007,21:25
Robert, thank you for the above cheat codes. I had the same problem both ath0 and wifi0 on my new DSL 4.0 system. I used those cheatcodes and am now able to use my Atheros wifi pcmcia card.
Posted by setecio on Nov. 17 2007,22:17
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