Problems with Belkin WiFi

[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!

[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!!! ) 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!!

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!

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!