Netgear MA101 USB WLAN device

[Zuron007]

I have a question to anyone who can tell me how i can set up my usb wlan device. It is not recognized by knoppix on the autodetect and lisadaemon cant find it either. I am a complete noob to linux and would like to know how i can configure my network connection to be able to run my knoppix box with an online connection.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on my dilemma.

[dudeldei]

Hi,
I had the same problem:

how i can set up my usb wlan device. It is not recognized by knoppix on the autodetect and lisadaemon cant find it either. I am a complete noob to linux and would like to know how i can configure my network connection to be able to run my knoppix box with an online connection

Your device probably has an (yet unsupported) chipset by Atmel - depending on the revision of your model. For me, the following has worked out for my harddisk installation of Knoppix (after one or two nights of trying to compile the right driver): get the sources of the driver from http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/
Compile the driver on your own. At the next boot, I had to run "netcardconfig" to configure the wlan and the ifconfig parameters, and it worked. Now, the bad part of the message: I still can't figure out how to get this automatic configuration done at boot time. This means, I have to do it every time I boot

hth
Axel

PS. of course you have to install the kernel sources first before compiling the driver - see thread http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=969

[Zuron007]

I heard of the atmel driver from sysopt.com but as it is i have no idea of how to run/configure/compile the thing.

I mean i have tried untaring the atmel driver, changing the fstab and ifconfig files to try and get it to work. So far it has been fruitless. I have the rev. b version of the Netgear MA101.

Could i get a detailed description of what i have to do in order to get it all to work right?

[dudeldei]

Could i get a detailed description of what i have to do in order to get it all to work right?

Yes, please get a detailed How-to from http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/howto/howto.html
or try the hints given at http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=1771

Yours
Axel

[Zuron007]

Ok so far so good, but i am not quite there yet.

Every time i try to dmesg it tells me that there is still no driver for my device

also where am i supposed to change the alias for usb-controller uhci?

what extra commands do i have to enter when i am trying to install the module in the kernel?

How do i get knoppix to realize that i want the device to be called eth0 and so forth?

Oh yeah the other error that i get is when i try to modprobe usbvnetr it tells me that it failed as well.

Any ideas of what i need to do now?

Btw thanks a lot dudelei, the links you gave me where a great help!

[aay]

What version of Knoppix are you using? Check out what was added in the last line of the changelog in the 07-25 version.

* V3.2-2003-07-25
- workaround atempt for erraneouos DNS update script of pppconfig 2.2.0
- dma bootoption now also enables DMA for CD-Roms
- enable Promise controller softwareraid on boot (Kernel 2.4.21)
- added atmel drivers for wireless cards

I'd be interested to hear how things work with post 07-25 versions.

[Zuron007]

I think that you are right about the version having to do with my problem

I tried to insmod the driver and got back that the driver was compiled for kernel 2.4.20 and i have version 2.4.20-xfs.

I still have no clue how i might be able to get around this.

Should I download the 07-25 version? Would that be beneficial to me or would i have to download an older version?

Nonetheless it appears that i will have to reinstall the whole thing either way unless someone can tell me how i can change my version and have the driver work without messing up everything else.

[Lex]

Should I download the 07-25 version? Would that be beneficial to me or would i have to download an older version?

I have the same MA101 thing as you and I have the newest Knoppix (which is the 26-07-2003) and I must say that it does not support this network adapter natively. If I try to configure a WLAN card the program tells me that I do not have any. lsusb finds the NIC but usbmodules cannot find a proper module for this device.

[Zuron007]

lsusb finds the NIC but usbmodules cannot find a proper module for this device.

I know that the atmelwlan driver creates a module by the name of usbvnet or usbvnetr depending on the rev of your device (a and b respectively) and you can find it in /usr/src/linux/modules/usb/

My problem is that when i try to insmod usbvnetr through knoppix it tells me that the driver is for kernel version 2.4.20 and that my kernel version is 2.4.20-xfs

I have also tried modconf to try and load the module with no success

Now i have been trying to see about changing that whole xfs thing without installing the other kernel itself. I have tried going to /usr/src/linux and changing the Makefile but that is fruitless because the makefile does not include the xfs stuff that i thought it would. I have tried searching for it elsewhere in /usr/src/ but have had no luck. In other words i am not too sure how to go about changing the kernel version so that the usbvnetr module will insmod.

So my quest at the moment is to change my linux kernel version and god knows how i will do that.

[Lex]

lsusb finds the NIC but usbmodules cannot find a proper module for this device.

I know that the atmelwlan driver creates a module by the name of usbvnet or usbvnetr depending on the rev of your device (a and b respectively) and you can find it in /usr/src/linux/modules/usb/

Hm, I don't install Knoppix onto the HDD (I prefere to run it from a VMWare virtual machine or from the RAM), since debian is (IMO) better suited for a HDD install (I know, Knoppix is debian-based, but it's not the same).

So I was talking about a non-installed Knoppix .