Problems with Belkin WiFi

[iD:0t]

I'm currently having issues with installing my wireless NIC under Knoppix v3.6 and v3.7 (using the 2.6 kernel). The card is a Belkin F5D7000uk 802.11g card, and it runs a Broadcom chipset (bcmwl5.inf). I have run the ndiswrapper tool in Knoppix using it's graphical frontend, when i locate my .inf file and hit OK, the program closes and Linux freezes. Darn! BUT... When I run ndiswrapper through the shell, as root user, it says it has installed the drivers, along with a message that theres no such thing as /etc/..... or something like that. And the iwconfig cannot see any network adapters installed. Any ideas as to what I should do now? I want to get this ironed out before I proceed with installing Knoppix to my hard drive.

Thanks.

[grant_vallance]

I'm currently having issues with installing my wireless NIC under Knoppix v3.6 and v3.7 (using the 2.6 kernel). The card is a Belkin F5D7000uk 802.11g card, and it runs a Broadcom chipset (bcmwl5.inf). I have run the ndiswrapper tool in Knoppix using it's graphical frontend, when i locate my .inf file and hit OK, the program closes and Linux freezes. Darn! BUT... When I run ndiswrapper through the shell, as root user, it says it has installed the drivers, along with a message that theres no such thing as /etc/..... or something like that. And the iwconfig cannot see any network adapters installed. Any ideas as to what I should do now? I want to get this ironed out before I proceed with installing Knoppix to my hard drive.

Thanks.

Hello.

Hmmm... this sounds strange.

I use both a Belkin F5D7000uk and F5D7010uk card with Knoppix with no problems. Indeed I posted a HowTo which is a sticky in this forum.

I have never had or heard of this problem.

A couple of things to start with:

1. What version of the card are you using? -- I am using v2.
2. Have you tried it with 2.4? and if you have, have you been successful?
3. Try installing the bcmwl5.inf file from your installation CD into a high level directory under M$; e.g. C:\ say call it C:\Belkin and try the proceedure from there. I would also include all the files that occur with the bcmwl5.inf as well. I am not sure whether they are needed but this is what I did and it worked...

Report back and hopefully we can get you sorted out ...

However, regarding an HD install ... I have heard that HD installs are not straightforward under Knoppix -- unless the situation has changed in the last month or so. If you want a distro that is simple and powerful for a first HD install I can highly recommend MEPIS. I am using that and getting used to it first before trying to install Knoppix.

Hope to help.

Regards,

Grant D. Vallance

[iD:0t]

Right,

1) I am using the Belkin Card, Version 1133uk
2) I did try the same install procedures under 2.4 kernel, but got the same problems.
3) I have tried accessing the .inf file and all others from different locations (i.e. the Belkin CD, another HDD) but still no progress.

However, I'm going to retry all this stuff to see what happens this time!

Yours,

Alistair Millar.

[tom p]

Hi,

the drivers from the Belkin WLAN installation CD caused my system also to freeze;
the Wiki at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/List was
very helpful: the recommended drivers from the Dell page work like a charm.

Ciao,
Thomas

[grant_vallance]

Hi,

the drivers from the Belkin WLAN installation CD caused my system also to freeze;
the Wiki at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/List was
very helpful: the recommended drivers from the Dell page work like a charm.

Ciao,
Thomas

I am happy to send you my drivers if yours keep failing since they at least work, and perhaps they will with yours ...

Hope you are successful ...

Regards,

Grant D. Vallance

[pureone]

i need a copy of the rlt8180L 170 drivers they no londer do them on there site

ftp://202.65.194.18/cn/wlan/rtl8180l/ndis5x-8180(170).zip

has anyone got a copy?

[iD:0t]

Ok, I'll download the drivers frok the Dell site and report back....

[iD:0t]

Right, I downloaded all the Belkin files and put them in a high level directory, i.e. /mnt/hdb5/Belkin Linux.

I tried all the .inf files in all the different directories, but nothing installed my network card, iwconfig still reported no network devices installed.

It's getting annoying, please, any more suggestions??!!

[grant_vallance]

Right, I downloaded all the Belkin files and put them in a high level directory, i.e. /mnt/hdb5/Belkin Linux.

I tried all the .inf files in all the different directories, but nothing installed my network card, iwconfig still reported no network devices installed.

It's getting annoying, please, any more suggestions??!!

Sure ...

I do not know whether they will be useful ...

1. Rename higher-level directory to: Belkin

It probably will make know difference but I am concerned with folder recognition ...

2. Try again ...

3. I can send you my drivers; which work for my cards, and ostensibly are the same model, although I believe they are different versions.

4. Describe the exact install proceedures (in painful detail) describing what you are doing to get the card up-and-running. Who knows it could be something simple you are missing. Unfortunately I cannot read minds -- and Oxford is a little too far away to provide immediate personal help :-).

4b. E.g. After the command: ndiswrapper -i /mnt//hdb5/Belkin Linux/bcmwl5.inf have you typed modprobe ndiswrapper?

5. Try another distro: I.e. MEPIS

Hopefully, we will get you sorted soon.

Regards,

Grant D. Vallance

[tom p]

Right, I downloaded all the Belkin files and put them in a high level directory, i.e. /mnt/hdb5/Belkin Linux.

I tried all the .inf files in all the different directories, but nothing installed my network card, iwconfig still reported no network devices installed.

It's getting annoying, please, any more suggestions??!!

ok; can you provide some more details? I'd be interested in the output of "lspci" and "lspci -nv" (from an xterm or the console -
no need to post all of the output, you should easily figure out which lines are interesting/important ;-))

Have you tried both kernel version 2.4 and 2.6? I've had success with kernel 2.6. And the driver I'm using right now is
bcmwl5a.inf located in the "ir" directory of the dell files.

Next: you can run the script "ndiswrapper.sh" by hand as user "root"; does this provide further information not being displayed
when running the graphical tool? This wrapper script basically calls

ndiswrapper -i $DRIVER_PATH
modprobe ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper -m

with $DRIVER_PATH being the full path to the bcmwl5a.inf file. You might try to run each of the commands by hand. Maybe this
gives some more clues as to what goes wrong.

Finally, if the script ran sucessfully, it should have created a subdirectory beyond /etc/ndiswrapper/ with the name of the
driver file (bcmwl5a) containg some .inf, .sys and .conf files; the .conf file names consist of numbers separated by ":"
built from PCI vendor, device, PCI subvendor, device. You should find these numbers in your "lspci -nv" output.

I hope I haven't confused you too much :-)
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Ok, thanks, I'll post the outputs and get back... :?

[iD:0t]

Okay, so I booted the 2.6 Kernel (since you said you had most success with this) under Knoppix 3.7.

lspci feeds this:

0000:00:0a.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

and lspci -nv feeds this:

0000:00:0a.0 0280 : 14e4 :4320 (rev 03)
Subsystem: 1799:7000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at e8114000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8k]

Then, I installed the bcmwl5a.inf

I typed:

ndiswrapper -i /mnt/hdb5/Linux Belkin/ir/bcmwl5a.inf

and this appears:

Usage: ndiswrapper OPTION
manage ndis drivers for ndiswrapper
-i inffile Install driver described by inffile
-e driver Remove driver
-l Lists installed drivers
-m Write configuration for modprobe

so then i type:

modprobe ndiswrapper

then I type:

ndiswrapper -m

and it goes:

Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.9/modules.dep.temp for writing : Read-only file system

And there is no /etc/ndiswrapper directory to be seen

What does all this stuff mean??!! And where do you think I should go next?! Could the read-only file system error be due to running Knoppix from the CD?

Hope this was what you wanted, and I hope it helps.

Alistair.

[pureone]

try to make the folder name shorter when your next in windows can make things much easyer.

mount your c:\ via the desktop(when in knoppix) go to the folder were the .inf files are click tools on the file browser and open terminal from there this way you dont have to put the cd to the current folder. then run the script from there and you wont have to do


ndiswrapper -i /mnt/hda1/blahblah/blah

you will just have to do


ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf

some how your done something wrong at that point were you try to install the inf file remember so su to root

[tom p]

lspci feeds this:

0000:00:0a.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

and lspci -nv feeds this:

0000:00:0a.0 0280 : 14e4 :4320 (rev 03)
Subsystem: 1799:7000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at e8114000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8k]

Then, I installed the bcmwl5a.inf


ok, then your hardware is identical to mine, so it's supposed to work.



I typed:

ndiswrapper -i /mnt/hdb5/Linux Belkin/ir/bcmwl5a.inf

and this appears:

Usage: ndiswrapper OPTION
manage ndis drivers for ndiswrapper
-i inffile Install driver described by inffile
-e driver Remove driver
-l Lists installed drivers
-m Write configuration for modprobe


you have a white space character in your directory name, so the argument will be split
into two, and thus ndiswrapper isn't able to find the .inf file. Try

ndiswrapper -i "/mnt/hdb5/Linux Belkin/ir/bcmwl5a.inf"

(i.e. put quotes around the file name)



so then i type:

modprobe ndiswrapper


with the quotes around the file name you should now be able to verify that your
card was recognized:

iwconfig

should display something meaningful now. And directory /etc/ndiswrapper now exists.



then I type:

ndiswrapper -m

and it goes:

Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.9/modules.dep.temp for writing : Read-only file system


not sure if this is supposed to work (and it doesn't really make sense anyway, you're running
the system from a read-only medium, so changes aren't supposed to survive a reboot. ndiswrapper -m
writes the kernel module configuration, so that after a reboot the module will load automatically if interface
wlan0 is about to be configured. You can ignore it by now).



What does all this stuff mean??!! And where do you think I should go next?! Could the read-only file system error be due to running Knoppix from the CD?

Hope this was what you wanted, and I hope it helps.

Alistair.

The only thing you have done wrong is to put a white space character in the directory name.
I'm quite confident that if you quote it, everything will work :wink:

Ciao,
Thomas

[grant_vallance]

tom p: Thank-you for explaining why the gap (white space) in the directories means that ndiswrapper does not work.

I did suggest earlier that iD:0t change his directory for bcmwl5a.inf from "Linux Belkin" to "Belkin" on a "feeling" that the gap could be causing the problem. I just could not account for my intuition and why it might matter. Now I know :-)

As they say, you learn something new everyday [if you pay attention ;-)]

Its also nice to 'know' that the hardware works -- my cards (incl. the model in question) are a different version (v2 instead of v3) and I did not know if the new cards had been shown to work under Knoppix. I'll file that one away for future reference.

Hopefully iD:0t is sorted soon.

Thanks again for the explanation.

Regards,

Grant D. Vallance

[iD:0t]

Yay!! :D :D :D

Finally, I got the card recognised under Linux! It must have been the white space for sure.

But I presume that I have more to do before I can get on the internet/file sharing.... Can you offer help with this too?

I started up the network card configuration utility in the same place as the graphical ndiswrapper app, and it asked if I wanted to do a DHCP broadcast (which is how my router is assigning IPs). But this came back as a failure. Was this the right thing to do, or should I have done alternative things?

Many thanks for your help so far Tom!

Alistair. :)

[tom p]

Yay!! :D :D :D

Finally, I got the card recognised under Linux! It must have been the white space for sure.

But I presume that I have more to do before I can get on the internet/file sharing.... Can you offer help with this too?

I started up the network card configuration utility in the same place as the graphical ndiswrapper app, and it asked if I wanted to do a DHCP broadcast (which is how my router is assigning IPs). But this came back as a failure. Was this the right thing to do, or should I have done alternative things?

Alistair. :)

cool :-)

setting up a network connection isn't that hard now anymore; it however depends on the knowledge of some
features/settings of your accesspoint. To begin:

- does iwlist wlan0 scanning as user root return a "connection" to your AP?
- if yes: simply try (again as user root) pump -i wlan0; this should request an IP address from your DHCP server.

- if not: you probably need some settings from your AP (I've set up mine to use a WEP key and not to announce its
SSID publically). If you have the SSID and probably the WEP key, you can proceed with:

iwconfig wlan0 essid <your-ssid-here> channel <your-channel-here> key <your-wep-key-here>
you might want to consult the man page for iwconfig: man iwconfig; it describes some of the arguments
in more detail than I can :-)

- Now look again if iwlist wlan0 scanning reports something new. If yes, try again to "order" an IP address by
using pump -i wlan0. (You can check via ifconfig wlan0 if you've been assigned one).

- If you have been assigned an IP address, you probably have to set a default route to access the internet - you
should however be able to access the machines on the same network already. To add a default route, you issue
something like route add default gw <ip-address-of-your-router>. You can check beforehand if a default
route already exists with netstat -rn. If you already have a line beginnig with "0.0.0.0", all should be set up
already. The last thing you probably have to do is to add a line in /etc/resolv.conf that points to a name server
you can use: nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx where xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP address of your nameserver.

Note however that the default route and nameserver settings can and usually will be set via DHCP.

There should be some other threads that describe how to preserve these configuration steps over a reboot.
If you've installed your Knoppix on a HD however, it should suffice to put the wlan0 configuration into file
/etc/network/interfaces; mine looks like



auto lo wlan0
iface lo inet loopback

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid <my-ssid>
wireless-channel <my-channel>
wireless-mode Managed
wireless-keymode restricted
wireless-key1 <my-wep-key>
wireless-defaultkey 1


This description should help as a starting point.

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

I followed what you said to do, but didn't seem to make any progress...

Here's exactly what I did...

Code starts

knoppix@ttyp1[knoppix]$ su
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: (My MAC Address)
ESSID:(My SSID)
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s

root@ttyp1[knoppix]# pump -i wlan0
Operation failed.
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwconfig wlan0 essid (my ssid) channel 11
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: (My MAC Address)
ESSID:(My SSID)
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-78 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s

root@ttyp1[knoppix]# pump -i wlan0
Operation failed.
root@ttyp1[knoppix]#

Code ends

It's almost like it wants to work, but it isn't.

Thanks,

Alistair.

[grant_vallance]

I followed what you said to do, but didn't seem to make any progress...

Here's exactly what I did...

Code starts

knoppix@ttyp1[knoppix]$ su
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: (My MAC Address)
ESSID:(My SSID)
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s

root@ttyp1[knoppix]# pump -i wlan0
Operation failed.
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwconfig wlan0 essid (my ssid) channel 11
root@ttyp1[knoppix]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: (My MAC Address)
ESSID:(My SSID)
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-78 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s

root@ttyp1[knoppix]# pump -i wlan0
Operation failed.
root@ttyp1[knoppix]#

Code ends

It's almost like it wants to work, but it isn't.

Thanks,

Alistair.

A couple of things.

1. Encryption can be iffy; so for starters do not try and use encryption, but that is what you seem to doing a/c to what you have posted.

2. dhcp via pump can be quite tempermental , esp. if you are any distance away from your router. I see you are not getting any signal which is suggestive. If you can try and get wireless up-and-running right next to the router or as close to it as you can to make sure you are not in any wireless dead-spots. (In my case, shifting the case under my desk a matter of inches makes the difference to whether the router is picked up or not, although the box is up-stairs from the router.

3. I take it your router is set up as a dhcp server -- i.e. that is how your M$ boxes etc., get their IP addresses ... Just to be sure ... otherwise you need to set up your router to provide this service ...

HTH

Regards,

Grant D. Vallance

[tom p]

Hi,

it seems as if your DHCP server doesn't work? Double check your router configuration and make
sure, your AP and router (if they are not the same machine) have the same netmask and are on
the same network!

(You can check if your router really is configured as DHCP server by doing a
nmap -sU -p 67 <ip-address-of-your-router>
It should after some seconds show
67/udp open|filtered dhcpserver)

As a workaround you can assign an unused IP address from your network by hand to your
wlan0 interface:

ifconfig wlan0 xx.xx.xx.xx netmask yy.yy.yy.yy

should do the work; here xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP number you want to assign (e.g.
192.168.1.141), and netmask is the corresponding netmask (with the former example
255.255.255.0 would be a valid netmask, saying your local network lives on the
address space 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255; the first and last address from a network
aren't usable, they define the network address and usually the broadcast address).

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Right, pump -i wlan0 did not work, so I manually applied an IP to the card, but it's still not going...

I think it must be Linux, since this card makes wireless LAN connections OK in WinXP, my modem/router is upstairs, and the signal strength is good under WinXP. It's this message that I think might be something to do with it...

Quality:0/100 Signal level:-78 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm

Whereas in WinXP the Signal Level is around 70 and the Noise Level is around 80 normally.

I notice the massively larger Noise Value under Linux.....

What could be the problem?

Alistair.

[tom p]

Right, pump -i wlan0 did not work, so I manually applied an IP to the card, but it's still not going...

I think it must be Linux, since this card makes wireless LAN connections OK in WinXP, my modem/router is upstairs, and the signal strength is good under WinXP. It's this message that I think might be something to do with it...

Quality:0/100 Signal level:-78 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm

Whereas in WinXP the Signal Level is around 70 and the Noise Level is around 80 normally.

I notice the massively larger Noise Value under Linux.....

What could be the problem?

Alistair.

I don't really know; iwconfig here shows Link Quality:98/100 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm, but I don't
believe it has much to say; so after manually setting your IP, what does "ifconfig wlan0" print out? And what exactly does
"but it's still not going..." mean? Was assigning an IP successfully? Do you have set a default route? What does "netstat -rn"
print out?

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Logged in as root, detected card.

Ok, when I have detected the card, I type:

iwconfig wlan0 essid (My ESSID) channel 11

now, iwconfig wlan0 returns

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-79 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:4 Invalid misc:12271 Missed beacon:0

and ifconfig wlan0 returns

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:50:08:9A:44
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:2736 (2.6 KiB)
Interrupt:17 Memory:e8114000-e8115fff

so now I type

ifconfig wlan0 (IP I want) netmask (Corresponding Netmask)

and an ip is assigned, and then i type

route add default gw (My Router's IP)

now, netstat -rn returns

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.2.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0

So i presume i should now do the name server step? But where do I find the correct nameserver address to use?

And is all this OK so far?? :?

[tom p]

Logged in as root, detected card.

Ok, when I have detected the card, I type:

iwconfig wlan0 essid (My ESSID) channel 11

now, iwconfig wlan0 returns

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-79 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:4 Invalid misc:12271 Missed beacon:0


hmm; from the ESSID setting and MAC address of the access point it doesn't seem
that you have a working connection to your access point yet; at least the ESSID you've
entered should be shown and the MAC address should be different from ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff.
I'd double check, if your access point requires entering a WEP key. Or maybe adding a
"key open" parameter to the iwconfig parameter list might help. (And I assume your
SSID doesn't contain any spaces? :-))

If this helps (and iwconfig now shows your SSID), you might now also be successful
issuing pump -i wlan0



and ifconfig wlan0 returns

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:50:08:9A:44
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:2736 (2.6 KiB)
Interrupt:17 Memory:e8114000-e8115fff

so now I type

ifconfig wlan0 (IP I want) netmask (Corresponding Netmask)

and an ip is assigned, and then i type

route add default gw (My Router's IP)

now, netstat -rn returns

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.2.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0


the setting is definitely ok, but from the iwconfig wlan0 output I don't expect
a ping 192.168.2.1 to return an answer!?



So i presume i should now do the name server step? But where do I find the correct nameserver address to use?

And is all this OK so far?? :?

The nameserver address is usually also distributed via DHCP, so you must have entered it while configuring
your router; then, your provider should have given to you that information. Maybe you can gather it when
working under XP from the networking settings? (Don't know exactly if you can find it there, I mostly work
with Linux :-) )

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Ok, so I tried the SSID thing with the key open parameter, and, then I can see the SSID in the iwconfig screen, a step forward. But still pump -i wlan0 fails. And when I try to write a nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf, it fails, saying that I cannot write to the file... Help!!

Alistair.

[tom p]

Hi,


Ok, so I tried the SSID thing with the key open parameter, and, then I can see the SSID in the iwconfig screen, a step forward. But still pump -i wlan0 fails. And when I try to write a nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf, it fails, saying that I cannot write to the file... Help!!


Output of the steps you've done was usually helpful to debug what went wrong or doesn't work yet. So again guessing in the wild...

Assuming iwconfig wlan0 now displays the ESSID you've set and also the MAC address of your access point, you should now be able to continue setting up the networok connection by hand (as described before). Try

ifconfig wlan0 192.168.2.x netmask 255.255.255.0

(of course 192.168.2.x shouldn't be used already, x be a number). Then, does running ifconfig show the changed settings? If yes, you should now be able to ping your router: ping 192.168.2.1. If not, I'm out of ideas.

The reason you can't write to /etc/resolv.conf is, that /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink to the file on CD, and that is read-only. Try removing it before you write to it.

Setting up the network card (the whole steps of assigning IP, gateway, setting up nameserver addresses,...) can also be done by using the netcardconfig command (I'd run it as user root in a shell, not from the Knoppix menu), if iwconfig was successful.

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Okay, progress!

I manage now to connect to my Router control interface using Linux, however, I cannot get to the rest of the Internet. Why might this be? I cannot delete the resolv.conf file in order to create a new one, since I apparently do not have the rights to do it. I presume that I am logged in as root by default when Knoppix boots, since no login screen is presented...

Any help you can give?

Thanks very much so far!!!!

Alistair.

[tom p]

Okay, progress!

I manage now to connect to my Router control interface using Linux, however, I cannot get to the rest of the Internet. Why might this be? I cannot delete the resolv.conf file in order to create a new one, since I apparently do not have the rights to do it. I presume that I am logged in as root by default when Knoppix boots, since no login screen is presented...

Any help you can give?

Thanks very much so far!!!!

Alistair.

You have to add a default route to your network configuration; with the setup you've built now you can reach all computers on the same network, because somehow they're all connected to each other (well, oversimplified, but you get it :-))

You must tell your computer, whom to send network packages outside your net, to forward them for you (and receive answers for you, that it will forward to you). That machine is called router (ok, you knew that already :-)).

Just enter route add default gw 192.168.2.1, and now all packets not residing on your local network will be forwarded to your router, who decides what to do with them.

And no, you aren't logged in as root by default; you have to open a root shell (or enter "su -" in a normal console window become root).

If you fail to get DHCP working, you might want to add the following to your /etc/network/interfaces file:


iface wlan0 inet static
wireless-essid <your-ssid>
wireless-channel 11
wireless-mode Managed
wireless-keymode open
address 192.168.2.x
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.2.0
broadcast 192.168.2.255
gateway 192.168.2.1


(this is totally untested and might or might not give you an automatic setup)

Ciao,
Thomas

[iD:0t]

Weird stuff happening now....

I did the route add default gw (IP) thing, and it line-fed to the next command prompt, so I presumed it had done something, but when I opened up Konqueror and went to www.knoppix.net as a test, it came back with an error, basically, It couldn't connect since it failed to find the host. Then, back in the Konsole, I found that the card had disappeared, iwconfig reported no netowrk devices. I didnt do anything but close the Konsole after setting the card up, open Konqueror, then reopen the Konsole to check settings, by which time the card had gone.

What is going on, do you think??

Alistair

[tom p]

Weird stuff happening now....
[...]
What is going on, do you think??

I have no clue; probably connection problems between pci card and access point?

I'd move the access point a little and retry the procedure...

Cica,
Thomas

[pureone]

make sure you set the name server. this is my set up.


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:


Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.6
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1



if you put this stuff in manualy its very important you put in a dns server.
check with firefox go to google.com if it comes up hostname google.com could not be found that means you need your dns.

i find that my card seems to disapear after pump -i wlan0

[iD:0t]

At long last, I have the internet working.... But it isn't with Knoppix, unfortunately. I got really fed up and stopped trying for a while, then, on coming back to the forums, i noticed MEPIS, so I downloaded that, and detected the card. An IP was assigned by DHCP and I'm now on the Net, which is good, but there must be a difference that prevented me getting KNOPPIX going on the Net, since I followed the same procedures for installing the card and configuring it under MEPIS.

Thanks to everyone for all the help, I wouldn't have got this far otherwise!!

Alistair.

[jMon54]

I have been on a similar journey with my Belkin F5D7000 wireless PCI card. Knoppix hangs when I run 'modprobe ndiswrapper'. Nothing I do seems to work. I downloaded Mepis but it won't run on my system. It ran fine on my Dell laptop at work, but not on my AMD box at home.

[iD:0t]

Strange, I also got MEPIS working on a pretty old PC (Duron 750, 512 Megs RAM, Integrated 4meg Gfx and sound, 4gig HDD)

But MEPIS did have issues installing when the PC was below 256 Megs - they say that you need AT LEAST 128 megs for it to run from LiveCD.

Hope this helps...

[jMon54]

Strange, I also got MEPIS working on a pretty old PC (Duron 750, 512 Megs RAM, Integrated 4meg Gfx and sound, 4gig HDD)

But MEPIS did have issues installing when the PC was below 256 Megs - they say that you need AT LEAST 128 megs for it to run from LiveCD.

My issue with Mepis is, I think, my on-board video. I read on their forum this can be a problem. The thing is, I do not know the workaround. I wish I knew what to type at the command prompt to get me into KDE. (All I get when I try "startkde" is lines of errors regarding my display.)

[iD:0t]

Ah, right. The first line you type is startx, then startkde

Otherwise the X-Window server isn't loaded, so linux hasn't a clue what to do with the graphics information.

So, first, type:

startx

then, things will happen and a new console type thing opens. in that, type

startkde

That should do it! :D

[jMon54]

I have been on a similar journey with my Belkin F5D7000 wireless PCI card. Knoppix hangs when I run 'modprobe ndiswrapper'. Nothing I do seems to work. I downloaded Mepis but it won't run on my system. It ran fine on my Dell laptop at work, but not on my AMD box at home.

I got Mepis to load. I had to disable Smartdrive in BIOS. But, I still cannot get the darn thing to use my wireless card.

[iD:0t]

Ok, lets see what we can do to get you sorted.

This is what i did, based pretty much on the instructions elsewhere in this thread.

Step 1: Locate suitable driver .infs for your card.

Belkin don't make drivers for the CHIPSET, which is what we need drivers for, since the chipset is made by Broadcom.

The infs i used were from here: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R81433.EXE

Download this and extract them under windows.

Move all the files from the IR directory it creates, to a location that you can get to from Linux, e.g. a CD/ZIP/Floppy/Second hard drive that can be seen by both Win and Linux.

NOTE: These are windows drivers, this is cool, since Linux is going to emulate them.

Step 2: Get the card recognised.

Firstly, login to MEPIS as root.

Open up a console (if you haven't logged in as root, just type 'su' here, then enter your root password)

From now on, i'm assuming that you put the driver files on a CD, with several subdirectories, so in linux, the path is /mnt/cdrom/broadcom/ir/files here

type this at the prompt: ndiswrapper -i "/mnt/cdrom/broadcom/ir/bcmwl5a.inf"

now type: modprobe ndiswrapper

then type: ndiswrapper -m

that should get your card noticed.

Step 3: get an IP for your card

NOTE: here, I assume that you are using a Belkin router, assigning IP by DHCP, with IP 192.168.2.1, if this is not the case, and the router IP is different, just swap it's ip with your one, and change the netmask accordingly.

in the console, type: pump -i wlan0

this should get the card an IP if the router is assigning IPs through DHCP

if this fails (as it did for me) you need to force the router to assign an IP

so type: ifconfig wlan0 192.168.2.whatever ip you want, ensuring it doesn't clash with any already assigned, (i use 192.168.2.20, since its unlikely that my router will ever have to assign ips to 20 other PCs on MY network!!! :wink:) netmask corresponding netmask, it will be 255.255.255.0 in this case

that should force the cards ip to be set

now, we need to tell the card how to connect to the internet (i.e. through the Router)

so type: route add default gw ip of router, 192.168.2.1 in the above scenario

that should get you onto the internet!! :D :D

I really hope this works, and I haven't got my facts wrong! (I am typing this from memory whilst using windows!)

If this fails to help, let me know, and I'll run through it on Linux, and get back!

Alistair.

[jMon54]

Alistair, thanks so much. I got far, real far, using your instructions. I actually got on the web for a few minutes before my system froze. First my USB mouse froze, then the whole system. I think it was because I had put a wrong IP for my gateway. All I know is, I never got this far in Knoppix. I am going to install Mepis onto my harddrive and see if I can get it going there. I am determined to wean myself off Windows (at least at home).

[iD:0t]

Excellent to hear that you've got somewhere! :D :D

Hmm, that's strange, you must have entered the correct IP for the gatway, otherwise you couldn't have got on the net at all. I haven't used a USB mouse on Linux, so it might be worth trying a good ol' wheel mouse if you still have one, see if that makes a difference. If your system keeps on crashing, try booting MEPIS through failsafe mode.

But I think it's definitely a good idea to get MEPIS installed in your hard drive before trying this. I had the odd hiccup now and then when running from LiveCD. Remember that LiveCD can't preserve settings over a reboot, since you cant write to the CD, I reckon that's where a problem could arise.

I suppose the major advantage of a HD install, is that you dont have to re-recognise and set up your card every single time you start MEPIS!!!

But one thing, after you redetect your card in a HD install, and then get it all set up with an IP, Linux will always remember your card exists, abut it might not always be able to assign an IP, why I dont know, but it just means that you will have to repeat step 3 again (which is nowhere near as tedious as steps 1/2!)

Oh, and another thing might be to log into the router's setup interface, and check that it is allowing your PC, and that it isn't blocking your adapters MAC address, or something like that. If I remember right, you can check your MAC address of the card by typing: iwconfig wlan0.

And also, if your sytem hangs again, then we can see whether it's the just X-server that's crashed. When/If the system hangs, hit <CTRL><ALT><Backspace> (it's almost the Linux equivalent of <CTRL><ALT><DEL>). If it was the X-server that crashed, you will bomb out to the text interface of Linux, and from there you might be able to restart X, then KDE as before. This, the would tend to suggest that the problem does indeed lie in the graphics card. So, what you could do, is find out who made your card and check to see if they make Linux drivers, in which case, download the latest ones and install them. If the company who make your card dont do drivers, do some Googling to see if there are any third-party ones. If your integrated graphics are NVidia, there is no problem, since Nvidia are GREAT with Linux, ATI is slightly more tricky, but they are getting there. However, both these companies provide great instruction on how to install drivers. As for other companies (Matrox/S3/etc..) im not sure, since I've not had experience with them.

I hope that in all these suggestions, we might get it sorted!

[geopfm]

Just wanted to post a quick message to everyone here. I've been working with Knoppix for about 3 weeks now trying to get my WLAN to work. I've been searching these forums many many many times trying this and that. And after reading this forum I've finally got my wireless card to work!!!!!!!!! So know for the first time I'm surfing the net in Konqueror!!

A big thanks to all those people out there!!!

[jMon54]

Just wanted to post a quick message to everyone here. I've been working with Knoppix for about 3 weeks now trying to get my WLAN to work. I've been searching these forums many many many times trying this and that. And after reading this forum I've finally got my wireless card to work!!!!!!!!! So know for the first time I'm surfing the net in Konqueror!!
Congratulations! Details please...

[geopfm]

The biggest thing that helped me was that I did a HD install so I could write files directly to the HD. When I was trying with the Live CD I kept getting an error, either that

iwconfig wlan0 essid any
operation not supported.

Or that etc/ndiswrapper not found

After that I was able to do everything like grant said in his HowTo.

Specs:
Wireless card Belkin F5D7000 ver 1000
Used Ndiswrapper with bcmwl5a.inf
followed grant's instructions

oh and one other thing that helped was I moved my card from PCI slot 2 to slot 1.

[jMon54]

Success!! Altho... had to go with Mepis instead of Knoppix. But that beats going back to Windoze, right?

Recap: I was able to use the drivers that came on the CD for my Belkin F5D7000 wireless PCI card. (Note: my chipset is ralink, not broadcom.) I used ndiswrapper to get the job done. What I did that worked for me was pretty much as Alistair stated earlier.. The only difference was when I had to manually pump my card, I used the system center in Mepis.

Alistair, Grant, etc... you all are great! Thanks! :D

[jMon54]

Update... My set-up worked but only for a little while... :(

My system freezes up after a while. I am trying to eliminate the source of the issue but am getting frustrated in the process. I realize now that my system is optimized to run under Windows. It has on-board video for example. I was able to get its winmodem to connect in Linux when I had dial-up service though. I was pretty happy about that! What I want to try to do is use a native Linux driver for my Ralink chipset wireless card. But I am stymied at the process of doing this. I have downloaded the tar file, unzipped it but have gotten stuck where I am told to copy a "2.6.7 Makefile". It does not seem to exist in order to be copied. The search continues...

[iD:0t]

I have to say I'm pretty clueless when it comes to building software from source.

But have you checked about to see if there are any .rpm or .deb packages that you could use to save the hassle of from-source compilation?

Try using KPackage.

Hope that helps.

Alistair.